


Unification

by MsSolo



Series: Detente [6]
Category: Batman (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Arranged Marriage, BAMF Alfred Pennyworth, BDSM overtones, Bad Parent Ra's al Ghul, Bad Parent Talia al Ghul, Big Brother Dick Grayson, Big Brother Jason Todd, Blow Jobs, Bruce Wayne Has Issues, Bruce Wayne is a Bad Parent, Continuity What Continuity, Cum on clothing, Dad Talk, Desk Sex, First Time, Fluff, Frottage, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jim Gordon is a good parent, M/M, Masturbation, Mile High Club, Office Sex, Phone Sex, Praise, Rimming, Secret Relationship, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Toys, Sexting, Shame, Slash, USE YOUR WORDS!, alfred pennyworth is a good parent, bossy sex voice, cappadocian underground city, inconsistent passage of time, there is no end to the angst, using their words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-07-03 07:29:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 48
Words: 142,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15814272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsSolo/pseuds/MsSolo
Summary: “I am Damian al Ghul Wayne, Ibn al Xu'ffasch. My birthright demands I accept only that which I deserve. A cowed man, beaten and broken, coerced into marriage and trapped by gratitude? That is the husband you think is my right?” Damian draws himself up to his full height, finally tall enough to look his grandfather in the eye. “Do you think so little of me, Grandfather?”





	1. In which Ra's announces an engagement

**Author's Note:**

> In terms of the post schedule for this, once it gets going it'll probably be Monday and Friday (GMT, which means if you're on the far side of the world you might get a few Sunday/Thursday night updates). I've got about half the fic written, but I'm completely guessing about the length; it's already gained another three chapters on top of the outlined ones. I'll add more tags as I go along (and the rating will probably go up in a few chapters' time).
> 
> You don't have to read the whole series before this, though it'll make more sense if you do. I definitely recommend reading Partition, which basically stands as a prologue and sets up some of the more significant plot points here.
> 
> We are very much entering the realm of Continuity, What Continuity! Most people's back stories are pre-nu52, with some of the post Crisis characters I like thrown in, but since it's also 5+ years ahead of canon certain dead characters are back (because I forgot some of them were dead... but they'll probably be resurrected anyway because comics). Also, Damian's backstory involves being raised much more in the bosom of the League of Assassins, because it makes the premise work better.

Damian is furious with himself for the time he lost in Nanda Parbat. All the clues he’d found in Tim’s apartment had pointed to Ra’s taking him there, but he should have suspected it was a trap. He’s lost the BatJet and over a day to travel. 

He should have asked for backup before he left, should have let someone know what had happened to Tim, but he thought he could handle it himself. He _wanted_ to handle it himself. If he hadn’t been avoiding Tim over the last few weeks, Ra’s would never have been bold enough to go after him.

He’s confident he’s at the right palace now, which is a small comfort. The Ottoman palace is in one of the Cappadocian cave cities. Parts of it date back over two millennia, but grandfather took it in the sixteenth century and made it his own. Generations of assassins have been raised and trained underground here. As a child Damian had made sport of the cave system, scrambling around the stalagmites, hanging from the stalactites, and shimmying up the air holes to pop his head out and view the surrounding countryside like a human gopher.

He wishes he were still small enough to use them now, but instead he has to take a less subtle route.

The plane he stole in Nanda Parbat ran out of fuel on approach, and he’d had to parachute down to the mountainside. The vehicle’s crash serves as a distraction that allows him to gain entrance to the mouth of the cave. From there he takes down a dozen guards (non-lethally, probably, but he didn’t go back to confirm) and sneaks into the upper chambers of the cave city. He keeps high, hoping to attract less attention, but before he’s halfway over the city he is being shot at. After that he gives up on subtlety.

He fires his grapple at the palace, which sits in a central pillar between three caverns. The caverns began as underground lakes, but the palace has been hewn from the rock over the centuries. It is visible from every building in the city, and for those walking the streets it is the main source of light, looming above them like a fine fretwork lampshade. The effect is achieved by the hundreds of windows, which make it easy for Damian to get in, but hard to avoid being followed. As he runs through the corridors he knows his shadow is being cast across the streets of the city. Thousands of assassins know his every move.

He turns deeper into the palace as soon as an opportunity presents itself, and follows the corridor downwards. He doesn’t know where his grandfather is keeping Tim, but the oubliettes used for prisoners (and wayward grandsons) are deep in the bowels of the earth.

The quickest way down is the central shaft, which sits over the fires of Ra’s throne room and heats the entire palace. There only way into it is from the surface, where it narrows into a six inch hole that feeds into a peasant’s hut and up their chimney. Damian makes his own entrance with an exploding batarang. The noise echoes through the palace. He’ll never hear the approaching assassins - they would not be employed within the palace if that were likely - but they will have heard _him_. This is not how he was raised, and it’s a rush to break the rules of the cavern city so blatantly.

If Damian is lucky, the fires won’t be lit.

So far, he has not been lucky on this rescue mission. This is no exception.

At least his Robin suit is well insulated.

Damian leaps through the hole he has created as assassins round the corner. He braces himself with his back against one wall and his feet against the other and lets himself fall, picking up speed as the hot ceramic tiles start to melt the treads of his boots.

The throne room ceiling is high, and he has time to fire his grapple at a chandelier before he hits the fire pits. He swings across the room and lands in front of his grandfather’s throne.

His grandfather is currently occupying it.

Damian straightens up, a batarang in each hand.

Ra’s stands up. He is entirely unsurprised to see Damian, which is maybe not a shock considering the ruckus Damian has caused. However, Damian suspects there is more to it than that. He has been waiting for Damian.

Ra’s gestures towards a dias on the other side of the fire pit, a platform which overlooks the Lazarus pit.

Tim is suspended by his wrists from the ceiling. There’s enough give that he could just put his heels on the floor to take the strain off his shoulders, except the dias is covered in nails.

Damian’s heart seizes in his chest. As he watches Tim’s head nods, and he slumps down. His heels hit the nails and he jerks awake again.

Ra’s has had Tim for almost two days now, and if Damian knows his brother he was probably already suffering from a sleep debt before that. Ra’s is torturing him in a way that is specifically tailored to the smaller man.

“Grandfather.”

“You came alone?” Ra’s raises an eyebrow. “No parental oversight?”

He’s still angry with father over failing to correct the issue with Tim’s adoption, though nearly a month has passed. He needs to fix it soon, to make Tim back into Damian’s brother.

“Give me my brother.”

“Your brother? I do not have Grayson here.” 

Ra’s knows about the paperwork. Damian has a sick feeling Ra’s knows about more than that. Even apart, the feeling that something fundamental is changing between him and Drake, something Damian doesn’t know how to stop, drags at Damian’s heart and chases the breath from his lungs every time the thoughts get close to the surface.

“Give Drake to me, or I will take him.”

Tim groans. He’s pressing his heels into the nails now and his eyes are open, but he’s having trouble focusing. Damian wonders whether he’s started hallucinating yet. 

Tim’s wearing gauzy green and black robes. They’re unstained, and Damian suspects they may have been placed on him for Damian’s benefit. There’s something familiar about the cut of them, they are specific to some kind of ceremony, but Damian can’t place them. At least they are not Lazarus robes; Tim has not taken a dip in the pit.

Ra’s laughs. “Take him?” He walks over to Tim and unlocks one hand. It falls limply to Tim’s side and he whimpers as the muscles fail to adjust to their new position. After a beat, he starts flexing his fist, trying to get the blood back into it. It’s a good sign, but Damian doesn’t know why Ra’s has taken the risk of giving him even one hand back.

“Would you take his hand, Damian?”

The question makes no sense. Damian snarls wordlessly at his grandfather.

“In the absence of a father of his own, would you have me gift him to you?”

“I refuse to engage in this wordplay, grandfather. Give me my brother, and I will leave you unharmed.”

“He is not your brother.” Ra’s tone is sharper now. Damian has annoyed him, and even though he is no one’s vassal any more it is hard to silence that childish voice which quakes at his grandfather's displeasure. “You could make him family again, if you wish, but he will never be your brother again. I chose him for a purpose, grandson, and I will not see that undermined by the bureaucracy of an ignorant nation.”

“He will never be your heir, grandfather. He has made that clear time and time again, but you insist on pursuing him like a spurned suitor.”

Ra’s laughs. It’s an old, dry sound. There is death in it.

“I suppose, in a way, I have been courting him,” Ra’s says, amused at his own words. “Funny that you perceive that, but not the nature of your relationship to him.”

He takes Tim’s hand and lifts it so Damian can see what he’s doing. Damian tenses. He’s ready to spring, to knock whatever blade appears from his grandfather’s grip and save Tim’s hand. Instead, Ra’s slips a ring onto Tim’s hand.

Ra’s nods to Damian, and Damian approaches the dias.

It is a slender ring with a plain band and single gem in it. It’s hard to tell in the dim light of the throne room, but Damian suspects it’s a diamond.

It is one of his grandmother’s rings. Ra’s long dead wife.

It is an engagement ring.

It makes no sense.

“Do you remember, grandson, eight years ago? We were in the palace outside Kabul, and you were brushing your mother’s hair for her. I told you both I had found you someone appropriate to your station, a perfectly matched suitor to be your betrothed. I told you I would test him.”

It is not precisely how Damian remembers the scene, but he knows exactly what his grandfather is speaking of.

“He has passed every test I put before him. He is ready for you, and you are for him.”

Damian reels, and he has to reach inside himself to stay steady on his feet, placing a grip on his core muscles like he might clasp the back of a chair.

It’s his fault. Everything Tim has been going through at his grandfather’s hands is Damian’s fault.

“What if I do not accept this? If I do not want him?”

“Then I will kill him and find a new suitor.”

Tim is conscious enough to have understood that, judging by the way he jerks away from Ra’s, but his coordination is lost to sleep deprivation and he spins from his still-suspended arm, feet dragging across the nails below. He’s too tired to even flinch.

“He has not passed every test,” Damian says. “There is one left.”

“Oh?” Ra’s is amused at Damian’s attempts to play the game against him.

Damian feels sick, but there is only one way out of this he can see right now.

“He must want to marry me,” Damian says.

“That is irrelevant. He will do whatever we wish in this state. You do not need to concern yourself with his consent.”

“If he is to be my husband, that must be my paramount concern. I cannot have a consort that does not wish to be at my side.”

“How could he wish anything but? You are his angel, descending from the sky to whisk him away from all this pain. He will lay his head on your breast and sleep the sleep of the truly contented.”

“I will not have him unless he is willing!” Damian goes so far as to stamp one foot to emphasise his point. If his grandfather wishes to treat him like a spoilt prince, Damian will behave like one.

“He is willing.”

“He is asleep!”

Ra’s sighs. “What would you have me do, Damian? I have spent years preparing him for you. I won’t throw that work away because you are unsatisfied with the way in which it has come to fruition. If you had remained with your mother I would have been able to present him as intended.”

“Or to another me,” Damian says. How dare Ra’s talk as though these were the actions of a doting grandfather when he killed Damian?

“Indeed. No doubt Heretic would not have thrown a tantrum over it, either.”

“Give him to me,” Damian says. “We will stay close. We will stay here, if that is your condition, but you will place my future husband into _my_ care. You will allow me to nurse him back to health, so that when the time comes he may make his decision in possession of all his faculties. If he consents to the marriage willingly and enthusiastically, it will go ahead.”

“I think enthusiasm is likely to be lacking,” Ra’s says dryly. “Why waste time, grandson? You may nurse him after you are married. It will be your right to do so. Once he is yours, I will not be able to touch him again. In time, he will love you for that in a way that is indistinguishable from other kinds of affection.”

“I am Damian al Ghul Wayne, Ibn al Xu'ffasch. My birthright demands I accept only that which I deserve. A cowed man, beaten and broken, coerced into marriage and trapped by gratitude? That is the husband you think is my right?” Damian draws himself up to his full height, finally tall enough to look his grandfather in the eye. “Do you think so little of me, Grandfather?”

Ra’s reaches up and releases Tim’s other hand. Damian catches him.

“You have three days. If he does not consent, willingly and _enthusiastically_ , and since you have no other use for him if he does not, I will kill him.”

Damian holds Tim against his chest. As his grandfather predicted, the other man is already slipping into slumber, face pressed against the R on Damian’s costume.

“I will have a room prepared for you.”

Damian cradles Tim close, and tries to figure out how on earth he’s going to justify the bargain he’s struck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, when I fell back into the Bat Fandom I consumed as much fic as I could, and found two new catnips: arranged marriage AUs, and people picking Damian up from school. So, naturally, I wanted to write both, and realised that I wanted them set in the same timeline. So I then wrote around 36,000 words of fic to get from A to B, and now we're looking at a good 80k+ for the story I actually set out to write. I used to write erotic romance professionally*, and I swear, I haven't written anything like this much in a short space of time in the better part of a decade.
> 
> I've been playing Assassin's Creed Revelations recently, so I've given Ra's a palace in one of the Cappadocian underground cities, because they're incredibly cool. Somewhere for the travel wishlist!  
> https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/incredible-rock-houses-and-underground-cities-cappadocia-001394
> 
>  
> 
> *And if I was organised I would have timed this burst of inspirations so if any of you want to reward me with money by buying my books, you could. But Loose Id went bust and I've been too lazy to self-publish, so oh well! Email me if you're really interested and I'll see what I can work out.


	2. In which the newly betrothed couple discuss their options

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to find an alternative to "habibi" for Damian to use, so I've tried to use a wider variety of terms of endearment. I don't speak Arabic, and I apologise to any speakers for how badly I'm probably misusing the various terms that'll appear over the coming chapters (and I'm very happy to be educated on better usage!). I've been using this site: https://www.arabamerica.com/12-ways-express-love-arabic/

Tim is in a strange bed.

He’s in pain, in a strange bed.

Keeping his eyes shut, he started to gather data. He remembers assassins, and fighting them, but eventually being overpowered. He was drugged for a plane ride; kept awake but paralysed, which is unusual for Ra’s, who normally prefers to obscure his location by keeping Tim unconscious for the journey. Ra’s had stripped him naked and taken him to a throne room, where he was suspended by his arms for an indeterminate period of time. More than 36 hours, but the sleep deprivation had started causing time dilation, and he’s pretty certain he had been hallucinating for a while. Ra’s dressed him at some point. And something else, significant? His hand? Tim had several waking dreams about body parts being removed, but he appears to still be in one piece.

His shoulder muscles burn. His feet are equally painful, though it’s a surface pain. Skin lacerations. His mouth is dry and his eyes gritty, and his bladder would like it noted that it is very full indeed. 

The bed is soft. The light on the other side of his eyelids is muted but not dark, which leaves three options. It is dawn or dusk, it is night with a light on, or daytime with heavy curtains. His internal clock is no use, having been thrown out both by the long period of wakefulness and the fact he is in a different timezone. He’s definitely been asleep for a long time.

There’s someone else in the room. He can hear breathing and the occasional rustle of clothing. They’re close, but not on the bed. If he had to guess, he’d say Bruce, but it could be an enemy of a similar size and fitness. Or even Damian, but Tim is less confident about the probability of it being his younger brother: things have been strained between them since Damian’s birthday. He hallucinated the younger man several times, more than any other rescuer, though in some hallucinations Damian took his grandfather’s side.

He hopes it’s a friend, or at very least someone who doesn’t want to have to change the sheets, because if he doesn’t get up soon he is going to wet the bed.

“You may open your eyes, ya amar. It is only you and I here.”

Damian, then, though the term of endearment raises red flags. Well, this is going to be embarrassing regardless.

Tim tries to reach his eyes to scrub the worst of the sand from them, but his aching shoulder doesn’t immediately obey, and when it does he manages to slap himself in the face with his hand. Something sharp scratches his cheekbone.

Strong hands reach behind his back and help him into a sitting position, propping him up with cushions.

“How long have I been asleep? How long since Gotham?” his voice is raspy with lack of use.

“You have been asleep for eighteen hours. At least 50 hours have passed since you were taken from Gotham, but I don’t know precisely when you were kidnapped.”

He manages to bring Damian into focus. The other man is wearing a loose cotton robe, looking more Arabic than Tim has ever seen him. It ages him, makes him look more mature than Western clothing, though maybe that’s the frown of concern on his face.

Tim starts to shuffle towards the edge of the bed, but Damian stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“I need to pee,” Tim says, a little more urgency creeping into his voice than he’d like.

“You can’t walk yet,” Damian says. “Your feet are still raw.”

He wants to ask, but he has other priorities.

“I’ll carry you,” Damian decides.

Damian carries him against his chest, and it’s a warm, safe feeling. There’s something significant about that, but Tim chafes against the need to be carried and the fact Damian does it so easily. It’s like their ages are reversed and exaggerated.

Damian places him on the toilet and leaves the small bathroom to give him privacy. He pees, which is an immense relief, but without the distraction of his bladder he becomes aware of quite how much the rest of his body hurts. He peels a bandage from the sole of one foot to examine the nature of the wound; the skin is cut to ribbons, red and swollen, but clean for now. His shoulders throb with every movement, and it will be some time before he gets his full range of movement back, though at least neither appears to have been dislocated. 

The scratch on his face is from what looks suspiciously like an engagement ring. It’s completely incongruous with everything else, and probably the first thing he should ask Damian about, but when his brother returns he stays quiet, accepting his help back to bed.

They are in a windowless, doorless room. Looking around as Damian carries him across the small space, Tim finally notices the entrance in the ceiling. It’s an oubliette, albeit not the damp cellar Tim usually pictures when he thinks about one (or rather, the one from Labyrinth, because that’s really the only context he has for an oubliette). 

The walls are unadorned sandstone, rippled with layers of bedrock, and lit by gas lamps with filigree holders that cast delicate shadows across the room. An ornate wooden screen separates the bed from the rest of the room. The only other furniture Tim sees are silk cushions surrounding a low table, which is set with a variety of foods. Tim’s stomach snarls.

“Water, first,” Damian says. “You will be badly dehydrated having slept so long. And then a little food, and then more sleep.”

“And an explanation,” Tim says.

“And… that.”

Tim keeps rolling his shoulders, feeling out the extent of the damage, while Damian holds a cup to his lips. He has the self control to take small sips, though he suspects Damian wouldn’t let him take more if he tried.

Similarly, when Damian fetches the food from the low table, he feeds it to Tim in small bites. Tim is reasonably confident he can move his arms with enough finesse not to hit himself in the face anymore, but he doesn’t point that out to Damian. He’s already abandoned any pretence at pride, so why not indulge Damian on this?

Tim notices the pastries have all had a small square cut from them.

“Are you my official food taster now?” he asks, amused.

Damian nods, face serious. “I could not trust they hadn’t been tampered with.”

“We’re still in Ra’s palace, aren’t we?” Tim sighs. He was really hoping they’d escaped, but it had never seemed likely. “Is there any point you testing them? You’re immune to most League poisons.”

“I suspect you’ll find that you are, as well,” Damian says. “I also tested them with the kit from my uniform.”

“Why would I be immune?”

“Grandfather is invested in your survival, which means other League members are heavily invested in the opposite. He will have found a way to introduce the poisons to your system in small doses, no doubt, to defend you against attacks from rivals.” Damian shrugs, and pops a piece of samosa into his own mouth. “At least, that is my theory, but I do not intend to test it. To the best of my knowledge everything he has provided so far is safe, but I am taking no risks.”

Tim’s appetite escapes him as he dwells on the reminder he is always in Ra’s sights. The idea that Ra’s might have been drip feeding him poisons for years is depressingly plausible.

Damian holds up a stuffed date, but Tim shakes his head. He’s had enough to satisfy his stomach for now, and he’s tired again. Bone tired. 

It’s a too familiar feeling, and he’s not sure he can power through it this time. He’s spent the last years moving through treacle, pushing forward against an impossible flow, and he knows his breaking point isn’t far off. Maybe Damian was right years ago, when he said Tim was too weak to be Robin. None of the others seem to hit this wall as often as he does. He feels like his life is nothing but wall. This moment when he’s too tired to think clearly and it’s hard to make even simple decisions and the desire to just _stop_ becomes overwhelming and the only thing holding him back is their scorn and disappointment. So he pushes forwards, over and over, while everything around him seems to go backwards. His whole life is a Sisyphean task, and it’s a matter of which will wear down first: the boulder, the mountain, or him. 

Something has to change.

If he’s not willing to be worn down, he has to smash the boulder.

He looks Damian in the eye. “Should I kill him?” he asks. “Is that the only way to make this stop? I can’t keep doing this, Damian. I can’t keep playing Ra’s games.”

His voice is raw with honesty, and he feels the cost of it. He can't take it back now the words are out. He can't pretend it's going to be alright this time. He's done.

“No.”

He knows that, of course, but hearing Damian say it is like watching a lifeboat sail away without him. Despair threatens to swallow him whole, dark and viscous, dragging him down.

“It’s not the only way,” Damian says.

Tim laughs bitterly. “I could let him kill me, I know.”

“Not that, either.” Damian shifts uncomfortably. “Grandfather has… proposed another solution.”

“To be his heir?”

Damian sighs. “To be my husband.”

Tim’s mouth keeps working even though his brain stutters to a halt, so he manages a halfway coherent “Is that different?” while he’s still processing Damian’s words.

Oh god, is this why he’s wearing a ring?

“Are we already married? Damian, are you trying to tell me we-”

“No! I refused. I insisted you had the right to decide.” Damian fidgets, looking his age for the first time since Tim woke up. “It would be different, you understand? He would have no claim over you. You would be safe from him as long as you were mine. You would be safe from all of them, and you would be free.” He looks at Tim, eyes bright and earnest.

“I would belong to you?”

“In the eyes of the League. Obviously I would not exercise my rights.”

“Your rights.” Tim feels light headed. “Your conjugal rights?”

Damian blushes a deep scarlet. “I would not exercise any form of control or coercion over you.”

“You’re talking like this is a real option. It isn’t even legal, Damian. We’re br-” But they’re not, and it sinks in then. “Ra’s did that. He changed the adoption record. He was preparing for this, wasn’t he?”

“He claims he has been preparing for this for a long time. I don’t know if he’s telling the truth; my grandfather does like to rewrite history in a way that is most favourable to his current aims.” One side of Damian’s mouth quirks up. “He was very annoyed when I pointed out that killing me might have got in the way of our marriage.”

“It might have been a bit of a sticking point, yes.” Tim stares up at the canopy above him. They’re in bed together, or as good as. “What else am I missing, Damian?”

“If we do not acquiesce, the probability of both of us surviving an attempted departure are… slim. To refuse him was to guarantee your immediate death.”

It makes a little more sense, then. Damian has to at least put on a show of trying to win Tim round to the idea.

“I bought you three days. I told him I would not marry someone who did not think I was worthy of their affection. That you had to be awake, and lucid, and willing.”

Tim remembers now the word “enthusiastic” in Ra’s furious tones.

“Three days and nights, or seventy two hours?”

“I believe three nights and two days. Wedding ceremonies in the League always take place at dusk.” Damian offers him a careful smile. “You should sleep some more. Let your body heal. I have painkillers for you."

Tim wriggles his toes, feels the sharp tearing of raw flesh on the soles of his feet. He isn’t walking out of here any time soon.

“The longer we wait, the less leeway we have in making our escape,” Tim says. “Save the painkillers for when we leave; I’ll need them then.”

“If you can come up with a plan which works where I am carrying you, by all means,” Damian says. “Be assured, I have rejected several.” He swings his legs onto the bed, so they are sitting side by side. “If you will not sleep, perhaps I should get some rest.”

Even with inches between them Tim can feel the heat that always radiates from Damian. He can smell him, the spice of his soap and the young adult musk underneath it. Damian has watched him sleep for eighteen hours, has been awake far longer in order to come rescue him in the first place.

“You should,” Tim says. “I’ll keep watch a while.”

Damian settles into the pillows, lying chastely on top of the blankets.

“I don’t think any harm will come to us until the deadline,” Damian says. “Though I do not trust that there will not be attempts to influence our decision, or take it away from us, in the meantime. Grandfather does not leave things to chance.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

Nothing in Tim’s life has been left to chance for years, he sees that now.

He thought the only things he could change were the boulder or himself, but Damian is offering a way off the whole mountain.

Is he strong enough to resist that temptation?


	3. In which Tim calls out his future grandfather-in-law

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, you guys, Chalala has drawn some amazing fan art for Partition! Look at our adorable awkward boys!  
> https://khachalala.tumblr.com/post/177650470912/partition-part-5-of-detente-the-series-by  
> Fanart makes me so, so happy ^_^

Tim feels a little more alert the next time he wakes up. He’s put the worst of his sleep debt behind him for once. Maybe he should take twenty four hour naps every week.

Damian is still slumbering next to him. He’s curled on his side, facing Tim, one hand tucked under his face and the other resting on his hip. He’s got a touch of shadow along his jawline, but the bags have already smoothed out from beneath his eyes.

Damian’s eyelashes are fanned out across his cheeks, dark and long, and Tim is struck by an image of their potential future, lying like this every morning, watching those beautiful lashes tremble and flutter open to reveal the green eyes underneath. He can picture a slow smile gracing Damian’s full lips, and morning kisses, and days spent under the sheets together.

Suddenly, marrying him doesn’t seem so ridiculous.

He needs to get out of this bed before he does something stupid, like wake Damian with a kiss.

He has two choices if he wants to traverse the room: he either goes en pointe, like a ballet dancer, or crawls like a child. And since he’s still decidedly lacking in grace, it looks like it’s going to have to be crawling. He can’t even put his feet on the floor to climb out of bed, so he lowers himself head first. His shoulders protest as he rests his body weight on them, bring back flashes of hanging from Ra’s ceiling, but he perseveres until he’s on all fours.

He crawls to the bathroom and makes use of the facilities. He gives himself a sponge bath, and feels a lot better for it. His soul might be filthy by the time he’s done here, but his body is clean. He changes the dressings on his feet and is pleased to see they are starting to heal, though not as quickly as he needs them to.

He’s dressed in a knee length cotton shirt. Damian’s Robin costume is hanging next to the bed and there’s two sets of finely embroidered linen robes hung with them, but the clothes Tim was kidnapped in are long gone. The idea of facing Ra’s without so much as underwear on is not one Tim really wants to face up to, but he suspects the robes have significance he’s not prepared to buy into just yet.

He crawls back across the room and helps himself to Damian’s tights. They’re far too long in the leg, but tight enough in the waist that Tim’s confident they won’t fall off. He’d like shoes as well, but there’s no point with his feet in the state they are.

He pulls his hair up into a bun, and overall it’s not an unusual Sunday morning look for him - oversized shirt, workout pants, hair up. He could be sat on the sofa at home, catching up on school work or hacking LexCorp.

He’s not sure if Damian is still asleep - knowing the teen it’s unlikely with the amount of noise Tim’s made crawling around - but Damian is still lying, unmoving, on the bed.

Fear grips Tim, and he hauls himself up on the bedpost to stare at his brother. The rise and fall of his chest is slight, but there, and his eyelashes flutter as Tim’s breath ghosts across his cheek.

“He won’t wake up.”

Tim falls back onto the floor, his butt taking most of the impact. The grate at the top of the oubliette is open and a familiar face is looking down at him. He can't place it immediately, though. He's met a lot of assassins over the years.

“The sedative is tailored specifically to his physiology. His immunity to our toxins is what makes him vulnerable to it. The Master knew you would wish to speak with him alone once you woke.”

The silky voice nags at Tim's memory, something about candlelight and wine and... pizza?

Tim hates that Ra’s finds it so easy to predict his behaviour. He waits for a rope to descend, or something that will help him climb out of this nicely furnished dungeon. Instead, he finds himself going slowly numb. It’s the same paralytic Ra’s used to bring him here. He tries to catalogue the effect. Was it in the water he washed with? A topical poison? Or is a gas being pumped into the room? Could it be something he ate earlier that’s very slow acting?

He wants to ask, but his tongue is heavy in his mouth. He sprawls back on the floor, arms no longer able to support him, and his knees flop to the side. At least his aching shoulders find some relaxation in the drug. He lies, face up, eyelids half open, but his face is too relaxed for him to focus his eyes any more. The assassin is a smudge, accompanied by at least two darker smudges. He can feel their hands on his flesh, but it’s the numb pressure of a local anaesthetic. They could be tearing holes in his skin, but all he feels is a slight pinch.

He’s lifted through the hatch and carried through long and winding halls. He keeps time in his head and counts the turns they make. He’s confident he could follow this route again, but since it doesn’t lead outside he’s not sure how much use the information is. Damian might know the palace well enough to escape from wherever Tim’s being taken. But then, he might know the palace well enough to escape straight from the oubliette. Tim knows Talia spent time at several of Ra’s residences with Damian when he was growing up.

Feeling is starting to return to his toes, fingers and lips as they reach their final destination. He’s carefully placed on a high backed wooden chair. He’s restrained at the ankles and waist by metal bands, but his hands are left free. He’s still regaining feeling, and when they release him he lets his upper body flop forwards. His head is lifted by his hair briefly so they can tuck the chair under a table, and then allowed to drop back again next to a porcelain plate.

TIm lets his arms dangle and brush against the restraints on his legs. The locks are old and heavy. They’d be easy enough to pick with the right equipment, but it would be hard to do subtly. Still, where there’s a plate there’s probably cutlery, and he can work with that.

A heavy sigh comes from the other end of the room.

“Don’t play with me, Detective. Sit up.”

Tim pulls himself to sitting. His muscles are still sluggish, and it takes most of his core muscles and pushing up with his arms to get himself fully upright. He hopes Ra’s doesn’t mind some very bad table manners until the paralytic fully wears off.

“Better.”

“Hello to you too.”

Ra’s smirks. “I knew you would want to see me, Detective. Pieces are just starting to fall into place for you, aren’t they?”

The assassin reappears, pours them both a glass of wine and lays out a selection of dainty pastries. Tim frowns at the wine, wondering at the sense of deja vu. It’s almost as though he’s expecting Ra’s servant to say something, to tell him about the vintage.

It’s the sommelier, Tim realises. The wine waiter from Damian’s birthday. Tim hasn’t touched alcohol since then. Ra’s apparently hasn’t anticipated that, at least.

Tim helps himself to a pastry, clumsy fingers almost squashing it in two. It’s savoury, some kind of spiced potato. It’s good.

“One thing that is very obvious to me now,” Tim says, “is how much effort you’ve been putting in to keep me too tired to notice everything else.”

“And now you’re fully rested?”

Tim has another potato pastry. He wonders if Damian knows what they are, whether if he described them correctly Damian would know somewhere in Gotham to get something similar. He can pick out onion, parsley, allspice and chilli. He tucks a couple into the upturned hem of his shirt to take back with him.

“You tried to convince Damian you’ve been planning this since his childhood, but I think it’s more recent than that. Or, at least, the stratagems you’ve been employing could work for multiple ends, and this is the one we happen to have reached.”

Ra’s see-saws his head from side to side. “Perhaps.” He swirls his wine in his glass, and takes a sip. “You like the patatesli gubate?”

Tim has another one, because yes, he does.

“I’ll say one thing for being kidnapped by you, the food is always excellent. I managed to persuade Two Face to buy me a chilli dog once, mostly to make Jason jealous, but it wasn’t the same.”

Ra’s laughs dryly at that.

“When you combine households with my grandson, you may find yourself missing carnivorous treats like that.”

“In the very long list of reasons why marrying Damian is a terrible idea, the food is not one of them,” Tim says. “The world could stand to eat a little less meat.”

“Something I am very conscious of.”

Tim wonders if Damian has accidentally inspired his grandfather to go vegetarian. It’s the environmentally responsible choice, after all, but it’s hard to imagine someone who has spent centuries associating meat with status giving it up so easily.

“You knew about Two Face,” Tim says. “You know about every kidnapping and hostage situation I’ve been in recently, don’t you? Even when it wasn’t your assassins, you had some kind of hand in it.”

Ra’s inclines his head. “A significant proportion.”

“Keeping me tired, keeping everyone tired. Gotham has been under a cloud for a while now. Everything feels more urgent, more fraught, more dangerous. The fatalities caused by the Arkham rogues have been climbing, but so has the gang violence. So has domestic violence.”

Tim steeples his fingers and looks across the table at Ra’s. Servants take the pastries away and return with a huge dish of jewelled rice. The sommelier paces around the table, frustrated by Tim’s refusal to drink.

“You’re taking credit for all of it?” Tim asks.

“If you were in my position, how would you have achieved it?”

An interesting question. “Gang violence is the easiest. Money, drugs, new players. Let the triads into Burnside. Let the Mafia into midtown. Take out a couple of drug runners in the right territory and the whole city descends into gang war. We’ve had to put huge resources into tracking weapons shipments, solving the murders of two bit thugs, and leaning heavily on the GCPD to keep themselves and the elected officials as clean as possible

“The knock on effect of the gang violence is desensitisation. The Gotham economy has been hit hard, so more people are out of work, and a lot of ordinary civilians are getting caught up in the gangs. There’s a rise in PTSD from the rogues gallery attacks, and of course with so many people out of work no one’s got insurance to cover treatment. Medical debt has skyrocketed across the city.”

Additionally, none of the Gotham sports teams are performing well, which has a really depressing correlation with domestic violence. Tim wouldn’t put it past Ra’s to be responsible for that, either, but just in case he isn’t he doesn’t want to give him ideas. The Knights are more than capable of a poor run of form without assassin assistance.

“At the end of the day, everyone’s on edge, and civilians are taking it out on each other. More assault and battery, more road rage, more domestic violence. The kind of crimes we used to have more time to just drop in on, but we can’t because we’ve got to stay on top of the organised stuff.”

Tim sits back in his chair and toys with his fork. A servant has loaded his plate with rice, and the pomegranate seeds sparkle in the candle light. The smell is heady.

“Arkham is harder. Most of them are too proud to work for hire, and they don’t play well with others. You can’t just approach the Joker and ask him to cause chaos. He’d refuse to spite you. The turnover in the security has shot up, though. Something in that? Have you had your men in there?”

“Occasionally, but that was not my primary goal.”

Tim takes a couple of mouthfuls of rice while he thinks.

“We haven’t had any new players on that front in a while. That normally shakes things up, starts a knock on effect of trying to outdo each other. They’ve been doing that, of course, but everything has stayed broadly within MO, just bigger and more often. It’s that fear of what happens if you’re not top dog.”

He pauses. Considers.

“Fear,” he says. “But we’ve tested all of Gotham’s water supplies for Scarecrow’s toxins. We’ve tested the gas lines, the food supplies, even the building materials.”

“You tested Gotham’s,” Ra’s says. “But Arkham’s utilities are kept entirely separate, to reduce the chance of them being used to facilitate an escape.”

Tim’s jaw drops. “You’ve been dosing _the Joker_ with fear gas?” He can’t even imagine what the clown sees when he’s shaken to his core.

“Tiny amounts,” Ra’s says. “Crane is broadly immune, of course, which helped reduce the risk of him recognising what was going on. Everyone else is just… on edge. A little more adrenaline pumping through their systems, making the shadows move just a little more, the jibes land a little harder, the nights full of more vivid nightmares. If you think you haven’t been sleeping well, Detective, Arkham’s inmates have been insomniac for two years now.”

“The guards, too,” Tim says. “That’s why the high turnover and absenteeism. Each day going back to work gets harder and harder.”

“Exactly.”

“And, of course, you’ll stop everything if I marry Damian.”

The servants take the rice away and replace it with kulfi. The aromatic ice isn’t Tim’s preferred cold dessert - so sue him, he’s American, he likes ribbons of fudge and marshmallow and chocolate shapes in his ice cream - but then a platter of tiny squares of baklava appears as well, and he doesn’t have to worry about offending his host by refusing their final course. The wafer thin pastry cracks under Tim’s teeth, oozing syrup and showing powdered sugar down his front.

“Of course,” Ra’s said. “As a dowry, I’ll even repair some of the damage I’ve done. Bring work back to the city, remove my influence from some of your city politicians, build a couple of new clinics.”

Ra’s can’t fix Gotham just like that, but he has the resources to make a significant difference. Resources he’s offered to Tim, over and over, that Tim has turned down because of the strings that come attached.

The temptation to accept has never been far from the surface of Tim’s mind. He has a lot of resources as it stands, with WE and the superhero community behind him, but he is never not conscious of the areas where they fall short. A lot of it’s geographical, and a lot of that geography is League territory. Equally, the sheer manpower Ra’s commands is significant. Imagine a disaster zone, an earthquake or a tsunami. He could deploy the League like the Red Cross, bringing medicine and shelter and sustenance. Tim has faith no amount of infrastructure failure would stop them.

Admittedly, if he was trapped in the rubble of a ruined city, he’s not sure he’d want an assassin turning up to help him, but he could always change the uniform a bit. Neutral colours, maybe some nice ribbons that could double as tourniquets.

Ra’s has shown he what he can do with that power to bring a city down. Could Tim use it to raise a city up?

He’s been quiet too long, and Ra’s is watching him like he knows what Tim is thinking.

“The adoption,” Tim says. “That was you as well.”

“Your country’s laws are anathema to the traditions of the League,” Ra’s says. “That same sex marriage is still precarious baffles me, frankly. And to insist that you and Damian are the same as blood relatives when you share no genetics in common was unhelpful.”

“I think it’s meant to help protect against abuse,” Tim says.

“I fixed it,” Ra’s says with a flick of his wrist, like he’s waving away Tim’s non-existent gratitude. “We have no such taboos here.”

“Why bother? Surely, marriage in your tradition is more important to you than marriage in mine.”

“Our marriages do not carry legal recognition in the wider world. Besides, though I had hoped Bruce might join us, he has not, and I will not deny him the opportunity to stand by his son on his wedding day. You will marry here, and then you will marry in America. I assume Gotham, but you may want to wait for the dowry to take an effect.”

“So you’re not suggesting we march down to city hall as soon as we hit the tarmac?” Tim asks.

“Of course not. You are young men of standing in your community. I expect you will want a society affair.”

“A society that still thinks of us as brothers. It won’t fly, Ra’s. There’s no way we can make it legal any time soon.”

Ra’s smile is cold and toothy. “You have a year.”

“That’s not long enough.” For a start, Tim thinks, the best venues have waiting lists four times that, and good photographers are nearly as bad (because if Ra’s thinks he’ll settle for second rate photography he doesn’t know Tim at all), and the sheer volume of decisions that need to be made mean it’s not something he’d even want to start thinking about until after he graduated college, and Damian will only just be starting then...

...and when did he start even entertaining this as an option? He doesn’t need a venue or a photographer or time to go cake tasting because he’s Not Marrying Damian.

“Nevertheless.”

Tim wants to argue, but he can’t find a way to do so that doesn’t sound like he’s acquiescing in principle.

Ra’s takes his silence as consent anyway.

“I have made no secret of the fact I want you as an heir. My grandson lacks the foresight to make a truly good ruler, but he has the decisiveness required. Together, you will be able to move mountains. I do not expect any such small thing as social approbation to stand in your way.”

When Ra’s puts it that way, it makes a sort of sense. They are well suited to each other.

“A League marriage does not allow for the possibility of annulment or divorce. It is a commitment for eternity. I know you will not dishonour my family by treating it with any less than the gravity it deserves.”

Tim’s lips quirk in a half smile. “That would be entering into it of my own free will, without coercion.”

“Death is not coercion, young Detective. It is merely a choice, and I know it is one you have placed stock in in the past. I have laid out my bargaining chips before you, so you can make your ‘informed’ decision.” Ra’s spreads his hands. “It rests on you, now.”

There’s something about the way Ra’s talks about eternity that makes it seem less real. No relationship lasts for eternity. Tim can imagine a year. He can imagine a single night. He can’t imagine eternity.

If - and it is still an ‘if’, even though it’s sounding more and more like ‘when’ in his own head - he plays along while he’s trapped here, that is one thing. To take the idea of marriage out into the real world, to hold it up to the light there, he can’t see it surviving that scrutiny. It’s like a school yard game, like playing house, that finishes when recess does. He and Damian can play dress up for Ra’s. They can exchange rings, or whatever the ceremony entails, and swap a few kisses and a first dance. Then they can go home, and Damian can go back to school and Tim to college, and they can put it all behind them.

Playing Ra’s game for a chance a peace, even if it’s only for a short while before Ra’s realises he’s been duped, seems like a small price to pay.

“Damian and I will talk it over,” Tim says. “That is all I can promise you.”

“I am not the one you need to make promises to,” Ra’s says.


	4. In which Damian spends too much time inside his own head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's around this point where I realised that "I'm not going to write the JonDami aspect of negotiations" was backfiring on me, because while I know exactly what happened between them, most of the characters, and therefore readers, don't. So cue me shoehorning it in here, in the super angsty introspective Damian chapter!
> 
> Also, fun with tenses, in which Damian has a flashback to about twelve hours earlier.
> 
> And the introduction of chapter titles.

Damian wakes with a familiar groggy feeling. He has been sedated. His mouth tastes of tumeric and rancid butter and his eyes are scratchy and dry.

He lies still, keeping his eyes closed, and reaches out with his other senses to assess his situation. If he is right about the dose, based on the taste still lingering in his mouth, he has probably been out for eight to ten hours. It’s a concern, with the clock still ticking. 

He is reasonably confident he is still in the same bed he fell asleep in. The sheets are the same texture, and the movement of the air around him suggests a space enclosed by fabric: it’s still a four poster. More than that, it still smells of Tim.

But when he focuses on what he can hear, he finds himself very aware of what he can’t hear. There’s no rustle of someone else in the sheets, no gentle see-sawing of breath, no barely audible throbbing of a pulse.

He is alone in the bed.

He extends one hand, rocking his body like he is rolling over in his sleep.

The sheets are cold.

Damian maintains the facade of sleep for several more minutes, but he cannot keep it up indefinitely. If his grandfather is watching him he’ll know Damian’s already awake. The fine hairs on his arms are pricking, his skin is flushing, his muscles are tensing. Tim is gone, and Damian is alone.

Damian pushes away the rising panic, the fear that his grandfather has decided the matter for them and taken Tim to be executed, and tells himself not to leap to conclusions. He is his father’s son. He will examine the scene for clues, and draw a conclusion only when he has all the data.

Damian pushes himself upright and examines Tim’s side of the bed. The curtains are pushed apart and the sheets are hanging over the side of the mattress between them. The bed sheet is badly creased and the mattress has a strange indent in it. Tim was dragged from the bed, or dragged himself, but slowly.

Damian climbs out the opposite side and walks around, bare feet light on the floor. The food from yesterday has been removed and replaced, but he’s not going to be fool enough to eat it again. He has other uses for it, though, and selects a gelatinous cube of turkish delight, dusted with powdered sugar.

He drops into a crouch on the tiled floor beside the bed and blows onto the turkish delight. The powdered sugar spreads like a dusting of snow over the tiles. Another puff spreads it. And yes, there is a hand print.

He uses the sugar to track the handprints to the bathroom. There are minute cotton fibers on the floor as well, shed from Tim’s nightshirt. He appears to have crawled from the bed to the bathroom, which means he was moving under his own power.

Damian wonders if Tim tried to wake him first. He hopes not. The idea of Tim reaching out to him for help, and Damian sleeping through it, is not a pleasant one. Tim would have been concerned, may have correctly deduced why Damian would not wake, but it still feels like a personal failing. It’s easier to imagine that Tim’s sense of personal privacy meant he chose to reach the bathroom under his own power.

A dried water mark on the glass in the bathroom tells Damian Tim drank some of the tap water. The hand towel has been thoroughly soaked and has half dried, still creased. Tim has come here, bathed and refreshed himself. Tim had prepared himself to leave.

Damian looks at himself in the mirror, adjusting to the new information.

His hair is flat on one side from sleeping and his eyelashes are gritty. He has an itchy layer of stubble pushing through his skin, and almost two day’s worth of grease in his pores. Every time he thinks he has put adolescence behind him his body betrays him without another breakout of acne, and he knows it is coming for him again. How is Tim supposed to take him seriously as a possible husband when he looks like a pizza-faced teenager?

He had hoped to see Robin in the mirror, calm and collected, or at least Ibn al Xu'ffasch, ruthless and cold. Instead there’s just Damian looking back at him, who needs a shower and a shave and a haircut. For a rare moment, he feels too normal for his own life.

It passes. He sets his jaw in a determined line and meets his reflection’s eyes. He is Damian Al Ghul Wayne, son of the bat, fifth Robin. He has work to do.

He returns to the main room. The wedding robes are still hanging in their place, but his costume is in disarray. A short investigation shows only his tights are missing. Even the contents of his utility belt remain undisturbed. Tim has chosen to leave the safety of their cage entirely unarmed.

It suggests he is expecting to return. It is a show of good faith.

Tim has gone to speak with grandfather.

Tim has left him alone in here.

A small, treacherous part of Damian’s brain asks him: “is it because he noticed when you called him ya amar? Your moon, your light in the dark of the night? Did he think you’d made up your mind? Has he run away because he doesn’t want to marry you? Is he bargaining with your grandfather, right now, to find a way to stay safe from you?”

He hadn’t meant to, when Tim woke up. Hadn’t expected the term of endearment to be as close to the tip of his tongue as it had been. It was just… eighteen hours was a long time to watch Tim sleep. A long time to _think_.

He thought about what would happen if they refused to marry. If he refused, or Tim, or both of them together.

He thought about Tim, dead.

He thought about going home, telling them Tim was dead. Would he tell them the truth? Would it matter depending on which truth? Tim is dead because he wouldn’t marry me. Tim is dead because I wouldn’t marry him.

Or he could lie. Tim was dead when I got there. Tim died while we were trying to escape. Tim died in front of me. I tried to save him. I did everything in my power to save him.

Either way, he’d have to live in a world without Tim. It wouldn’t matter what he told the family, because they’d all have to live without Tim. At least he would be able to make it easier for them, if he found the right thing to say. Only he would have to live with the knowledge he’d damned Tim before they ever even met. 

And life would go on. He’d graduate high school, without Tim there, giving Headmaster Hammer that superior look. He’d go to college, without Tim there, telling him what to expect and how to handle it. He’d have his nineteenth birthday, and his twentieth, and twenty first, and every birthday after without Tim to turn up whether or not father found time. He’d go to Pride without Tim. He’d fight ninja without Tim. He’d hack databases without Tim. He’d play Bach without Tim. He’d grow up, grow old, grow into Batman, without Tim.

The grief was real and immediate and it didn’t matter that Tim was right there. It overwhelmed him. He had pressed the down filled cushion to his face until he nearly choked on it, desperately trying to smother the rising flood inside him.

Premature grief had clawed at him, shown him scene after scene of life without Tim. Sitting on top of Wayne Enterprises in early fall, painting the sunrise Tim had once photographed and had thought Damian would like to paint, had gifted him like a tangible memory, and Tim not there to ever see the painting. Damian wanted to give Tim all the scenes Tim had chosen for him, present him with a gallery of them, but now it was a fantasy of the Drake Memorial gallery and it couldn’t be, he wouldn’t let it, he’d never paint again if Tim died.

He was lightheaded with Not Crying, each breath a battle against the rising tide of tears, but he’d forced himself to turn his head.

Tim. Alive. Breathing. His lips slightly parted, his eyelashes fanned across his cheek, his hair a tangled cloud around him. Porcelain skin, delicately flushed with life.

Tim couldn’t die. Damian wouldn’t let it happen. He couldn’t live without him.

Which meant they’d escape, or they’d be married.

Damian was too tired to plan an escape, exhausted and heart sick from his trip through a fantasy future. He was overtired, if he were honest with himself, almost thirty hours since he’d last slept, but he wasn’t willing to cease his vigil. He needed Tim to wake up and plan with him, plan for him.

He needed Tim so badly.

He had let his mind wander in the opposite direction instead, trying to soothe himself. He thought about marrying Tim.

He’d take care of Tim. He’d be so good to him. Tim would have somewhere safe and clean and warm to relax in. He’d have good food to eat on a regular schedule. He’d sleep every night. Damian would make sure he took regular time off work, set a good example to the employees under him, and they could spend those days together.

It could be platonic, if that was what Tim wanted. Brotherly. He could make Tim his everything without expecting anything in return.

Which, alright, might not be true, but he could make it true. He could change.

All Tim would have to let him do is take care of him. Tim had already shown willing in that area, with the maid service and the coffee. He liked being taken care of. Too many people who should have taken care of Tim had failed at it, had forced him to take that burden on himself. He was so self-sufficient, and Damian loved that about him, but when he let Damian take on little tasks on his behalf with a grateful half-smile it was a sign of such trust that Damian could almost believe he’d earned it. Damian would never take Tim’s trust for granted.

They could live together. It would be easier if they did. It would satisfy grandfather.

They might have to share a bed.

Damian had rolled onto his back, placed both hands on his stomach to try and quell the butterflies there. If they went ahead with this, they would have to consummate the marriage at the very least.

He didn’t think about sex with Tim. He didn’t think about sex with anyone, if he could help it. 

It wasn’t talked about in the League. Sex. He had an understanding of the basics of procreation, but he also knew he’d been grown rather than gestated, so it hadn’t seemed especially important.

He’d had his first wet dream in his early teens. It had been about Grayson.

He’d woken up terrified and ashamed, unable to look at his brother for days. It was wrong. There was something wrong with him. Grayson was his brother, almost his father. Grayson was a man. 

He’d felt like he was betraying Grayson’s trust. He was undermining the relationship Grayson had worked so hard to build between them with his carnal desires. Grayson would be horrified and disgusted if he knew what Damian was dreaming about.

Masturbation had helped. It was almost meditative. He kept his mind blank, focused only on the physical sensations. For the first few years of puberty, the novelty had been enough. He found the balance point between staving off the night emissions and letting himself build to a point of need where his body didn’t take much encouragement to reach release. 

Sometimes he slipped. Sometimes he got the balance wrong, and he’d wake up and scrub the remains of his shame from the inside of his pyjamas with tissue. 

Sometimes thoughts of other people crept in, usually near the moment of climax. Often it was the idea of someone walking in on him when he was too close to climax to stop. Grayson or Todd or Drake or Kent, seeing him in his shame, seeing him unable to control himself, seeing him as a sexual being for the first time and _reacting_ to that.

His decision to keep his mind clear was only compounded when he was confronted with how many telepaths his family knew. M’Gann M’Orzz taking on the role of Drake to fool Vale into thinking Red Robin and Drake were different people was a stark reminder of the kind of people his siblings knew and worked with. At that age, the idea of M'Gann telling Drake about his infatuation with Grayson, of Drake telling Grayson, was enough to make him sick with nerves. It’s still enough to send his blood cold now, even though this Drake, his Tim, wouldn't dream of it.

Equally, pornography was out of the question. Oracle would know.

He hadn't realised how much he had left himself at a disadvantage until high school, when the other boys started making reference to sexual acts he wasn't aware of. His ignorance was harder to hide than he'd expected, and caught the attention of Goldwater, who'd latched on to the idea that Damian's failure to laugh at his “cunning linguist” pun meant he had to be gay.

Which. Well.

Damian wonders if he wasn't gay, whether he'd have felt such a need to repress his sexuality. There would have been no dreams about Grayson's posterior or Todd's thighs (or, more recently, Drake's hair in his fists, coffee scented kisses, his voice) to spark that all consuming shame. He might not have worried so much what the hackers in family would find if he googled for stimulating images.

But if he's honest with himself, he thinks it goes deeper than that. The idea of fantasising about someone unsettles him. He dislikes the idea others thinking about him that way, vulnerable and needy. He wants to control the way they see him. He needs that power over them. And he doesn't want to take that power from other people either. 

He’d thought it might be easier with Jon. Another person who was actively consenting to be there. Someone who would keep the secret with him. 

It ought to be have easy to believe Jon wanted him, but instead Damian’s self doubt had only increased. He was a highly trained assassin with complete control over his every muscle, but their teeth clicked together when they kissed and Damian elbowed Jon in the eye and Jon left Damian covered in bruises when he lost control of his super strength and no matter what Damian did with his left arm it was always, always in the way. His ego had taken a hit Damian isn’t sure it’s recovered from even now, especially when Jon had cheerfully informed him two weeks into the relationship that they’d probably get better at kissing with practice. 

A make out session at the tower post battle had taken an unexpectedly heated turn and Jon had writhed and thrust against Damian’s thigh, and Damian had followed him over the edge out of sheer surprise. Damian had fled to his own room, leaving Jon gasping and confused on the bed. Damian’s body had taken over and dragged him in a direction he hadn’t be ready to go in yet, not with Jon. Damian was supposed to be in control, supposed to set the pace, but instead his body had betrayed him and displayed its desperation to Jon. They hadn’t talked about anything below the waist. While Damian cleaned the inside of his jock out with a corner of his sheet he wondered if Superman was going to kill him for defiling his son. But at dinner, Jon had smiled shyly at him, and held his hand under the table, and later Jon kissed him goodnight in the corridor between their rooms and wished him sweet dreams with a wink.

Maybe if things had worked out, they might have looked back on that moment as something sweet and foolish. They might have laid together in bed after a night of proper love making and reminisced about the urgency of their teenager libidos. When Damian dreamt of Jon’s hips stuttering against his, when he remembered Jon’s pupils blown wide, when he stroked his cock to the vision of raw need on Jon’s face, he wouldn’t have felt like he was defiling a memory he had forfeited all right to.

But.

But.

But if he's married to Tim.

If he's married to Tim, then maybe it's okay?

Maybe Tim won't mind.

They'll consummate the marriage, and that will probably be the only time, but after that he'll have memories and he won’t be able to ruin them like he did with Jon.

What is the point of a husband if you can't occasionally fantasise about him guilt free?

Picture him like he is now, even, lying beside Damian in a four poster bed, his silky hair spread around him, framing the gentle grace of his face in sleep. His lean body relaxed, for once, shoulders flat against the bed but hips twisted so the slenderness of his waist is emphasised. The curve of his hip bone, the lean muscles of his thighs, pressed together. The shadow on his pubic hair and the outline of his cock visible against the soft cotton of his nightshirt.

Damian had pushed himself away from the pillow and swung his legs out of the bed. He sternly reminded his swelling dick that they were not married yet.

He needed to talk to Tim about the possibility of marriage and what it would entail, and take time to understand Tim's perspective.

Tim may yet say no.

He may choose death over Damian.

The thought had threatened to choke Damian again, but he'd pushed it away. He would persuade Tim he could be a good husband. Good enough for a day, a wedding, good enough to get rid of his grandfather. He wants so much more than that, to hold Tim and call him beloved, to care for him and support him and raise him up, to be cared for and supported and raised, if he is worthy. But he will let that go as long as Tim makes the choice to live.

And then Tim had woken, and Damian had called him “ya amar”. And now Tim was gone.


	5. In which an agreement is reached

Damian climbs on top of the bedpost and measures the distance to the hatch in the ceiling. It is the better part of fifteen feet, still well out of his grasp. He can devise a rope from the sheets, but he needs something to act as a grapple that will not be immediate kicked away by whoever opens the grate.

Most of the weapons have been removed from his costume, but Ra's left the R. It is a shuriken, another of Tim's innovations.

Along with trousers, which are oddly missing compared with when he fell asleep. It's a sign Tim may have gone willingly, or at least without being wholly mistreated.

Damian pulls the R from its shield. He slips his tunic on and puts his robes back on over the top, secured with his utility belt. He wears his cloak for now, as it is the most efficient way to carry it, but he suspects Tim will need it more.

It is short work to tear the cotton rich sheets into strips. He soaks them in the bathroom sink and twists them into ropes. He didn't know how long he has, but if there is time for the fibers to dry then they'll shrink, tightening the bind of the rope and strengthening it.

He hears footsteps above. His rope is still wet, but he can't miss the opportunity. He shimmies up the bedpost and positive himself, looping his rope through the space in the R designed for it and reading his aim.

The grate opens and he hits his target first time. He launches himself towards the ceiling, not willing to rely on his rope more than necessary, when something falls through the hatch towards him. Instinctively he lets go of the rope and catches the body. The weight unbalances him and throws him forwards. He clutches the figure to his chest and lets the rotation continue, kicking his legs over his head.

The floor is too close to complete the flip. He lands on his back, hard, and the person he's holding falls like a dead weight on top of him, forcing the air from his lungs.

Above him the hatch snicks shut.

"Oh god, Damian! Are you okay?"

Tim pushes himself up on shakey arms and Damian desperately wants to reassure him, but he's having trouble inhaling.

"Winded," he wheezes.

Tim rolls off him, but reaches for his hand and squeezes it.

They lie in silence the floor for several minutes while Damian gets his breath back.

“I hoped you’d still be asleep,” Tim admits. “I didn’t want to scare you.”

“I deduced you had left under your own power,” Damian says, his voice still breathy. “And that you expected to return.”

“But you were preparing to come after me anyway?”

“You were being naive.”

“I’m back, aren’t I? Unharmed.” Tim pushes himself up on one elbow and looks down at Damian. Damian resists the urge to reach up and touch his face. “I know your grandfather well enough by now to know what I can and can’t ask for, here.”

“Tt. Naive.”

“Maybe.” Tim sits up. “Have you got your breath back?”

Damian nods and uses his stomach muscles to pull himself upright.

By silent consensus, they move to the silk cushions. The bed is not the right place to have the conversation they need to finish.

“I brought you back some food,” Tim says. “I didn’t think you’d want to eat whatever was provided here, once you realised about the sedative.” He holds out a couple of small potato pastries. “Your grandfather ate from the same dish, so I think they’re safe.”

It hardly matters at this point if they are, and Damian is ravenous.

“What did you learn?” Damian asks, stuffing pasty into his mouth.

“How your grandfather has been manipulating events in Gotham to make us more likely to agree to this. Keeping Bruce busy, removing the impediments to a legal marriage, giving himself bargaining chips. He’s been tainting Arkham’s water supply with fear toxin.”

“And he’ll stop, I suppose, if we acquiesce?”

“It’s my dowry.” Tim snorts. “Or yours. I’m not really clear on how dowries work. I can’t say I ever thought it would be relevant to me.”

“And does it appeal?” Damian asks. “Has my grandfather presented you with a compelling argument?”

Tim stares down at his crossed legs and fiddles with the dressings on one foot.

“Honestly?”

“I expect nothing less.”

“Yes.”

Damian stares him. After a moment, Tim lifts his head and meets Damian’s gaze.

“I resent the fact that he has successfully manipulated us into this position. My first instinct is to refuse him, just to prove him wrong. But the more I think about our options, the harder it is to see a way out of this that doesn’t put more people at risk. Even if we kill him, he has left Gotham the kind of powderkeg that we don’t have the tools or influence to diffuse in time. It’s not just Arkham he’s infiltrated.”

“He has planned this for a long time,” Damian says.

“I know, and I don’t want you to think I went to him because I didn’t trust your judgement on this, but I was hoping there might be a little more… I don’t know, wiggle room. That if I talked to him I might see something he’d overlooked. Instead, he used the opportunity to present me with more bargaining chips of his own.” Tim drops his gaze. “I _was_ naive,” he says quietly.

“It was worth the attempt.” Damian puts a hand on Tim’s knee. He likes the feel of his clothes on Tim. “Do you have a sense of how long it has been?”

“We have less than a day until the deadline.” Tim looks at Damian’s hand. Damian starts to withdraw it, but Tim folds his own hand over the top of it. He rubs his thumb over the ridges of Damian’s knuckles. “Do you know where we are?”

“Grandfather’s Ottoman Palace in Anatolia. We are in one of the smaller underground cities.”

Tim blinks at him. “What, like in Assassin’s Creed?”

“I do not know a creed?”

“It’s a game. It doesn’t matter. So the whole complex is underground?”

“The palace is at the centre of the cave system.” There’s a silver platter on the table; it’s where the turkish delight Damian used earlier had been, and it’s still got a layer of powdered sugar on it. He sketches a shamrock shape in the white dust. “We are here,” he points. “These caverns are home to over three thousand assassin households; at their peak, they held almost seven thousand, but the League has been shrinking over the centuries. This,” he points at the stem of the shamrock, “is the main route into the cave system. Of course, it is heavily guarded.”

“And the other routes?”

“The green cavern has an exit to the lake. The blue cavern has an exit onto the mountain top, which can only be accessed by air. The red cavern has a vent for the smithies which can be used as an exit, but it is constantly heated. There are air vents, too, but none wider than a foot.”

“Everything is guarded?”

“Of course. Especially so, right now. I believe there is also an exit from my grandfather’s chambers, but I never managed to find it as a child.” Damian flips his hand under Tim’s and interlinks their fingers. “I was too reliant on the air vents. Mother told me I would not always fit in them, but I disregarded her advice.”

“I don’t imagine she ever expected you to be planning an escape from your own wedding.” Tim uses his free hand to doodle in the powdered sugar.

“We cannot fight our way out. Sneaking out is going to be difficult, since we will not encounter a single person who does not know precisely who we are. Grandfather’s most dangerous assassins are placed closest to us, but we cannot underestimate a soul in the city. Our food and water is entirely controlled by grandfather, and he has already shown that he can taint it in ways we can’t detect.”

“And he’s probably listening in right now.” Tim lifts his sugary finger and sticks it in his mouth. He sucks it clean with a faintly lewd pop.

“Almost certainly.”

Damian looks down at the plate. Tim has traced a bat in it.

Damian taps the answer on the back of Tim’s hand with his fingers, hoping it looks like an affectionate fidget to any onlookers.

_Too deep for tracking._

Tim raises an eyebrow and casts his glance towards the surface.

_Jet lost._

Tim sighs and leans into Damian, pressing their foreheads together. 

“You didn’t _tell_ anyone where you were going?” he murmurs, breath ghosting over Damian’s lips.

Damian shakes his head, nearly dislodging Tim. “I was angry they hadn’t noticed you were gone. I wanted to bring you back alone to make a point of their neglect.” He tightens his grip on TIm’s hand. “I tried Nanda Parbat first, then here. The BatJet was destroyed in the Himalayas; I stole a plane to get here.”

Tim lifts his head away from Damian’s and hovers like he’s pressing a kiss to his forehead. His lips are so close to Damian’s skin he can feel the heat coming from them, can tell when Tim parts them, and misses them when Tim pulls away. His forehead burns with the ungiven kiss. It feels like forgiveness.

“Ra’s contrived that too, I imagine.” Tim squeezes his hand. “Where will the wedding take place?”

“Grandfather’s throne room, I imagine. There is a lazarus pit there.”

“That’s part of the ceremony?”

Damian lets go of Tim’s hand and leans back. It is a long time since he saw a League wedding.

“We enter the throne room together, in the robes. We face a trial to prove ourselves worthy. We vow life and death to each other. We symbolise death by cutting each other, and sealing the vow in blood, and then life by healing each other with the waters.”

“A trial?”

“It varies, depending on the location. In Nanda Parbat couples are encouraged to leap from the mountainside together. In 'Eth Alth'eban they must lay their hands upon the sun. Here, I don’t know.”

“What’s the risk? Could we die during the trial?”

“There is no love without risk,” Damian recites. “The risk of death is very high, or it wouldn’t be a test of worthiness. Some of the tests can only be passed by dying together. If both commit to it, then they are resurrected in order to be married. You usually get to skip the cutting, if you’re both dead.”

“Oh well, that’s a relief.” Tim rolls his eyes. “Until death do us part, indeed.”

Damian shakes his head. “There is no ‘until’ in a League wedding. There is no divorce, either. The marriage outlasts the individuals in it. Once it is consummated, it is forever.”

“Consummated?” Tim is taken aback by that.

“Well, yes. Grandfather is unlikely to release us until we consummate it.”

“I can’t do that! Not with you.”

“Oh.” Shame folds in around Damian like a shroud. The weight of it presses down on him and he wants to curl up on himself. How could he even think of sex with his brother, who cannot even bring himself to kiss him chastely on his brow? “Well, then we need not pursue this discussion further. Inform grandfather that you are unable to consummate a marriage with me.”

“What? No, not… not unable, Damian. God knows you’re attractive.”

“But you are not attracted to me. Not enough.”

Tim chews on his bottom lip. “I am,” he says. “I’m going to hell just for thinking it, I know, and there’s no way I should be saying this out loud, but I am definitely attracted to you, Damian.”

Damian’s heart beats against his ribs.

“It’s the situation,” Tim says. “It isn’t… You have to feel safe to say no, Damian. Otherwise it’s not real consent.”

“You are in the same situation,” Damian points out.

“I know. At least I… at least it’s not my first time, though.”

“You do not know it’s mine!”

“Is it?”

“It… depends on how you define sex,” Damian admits. He’s had an orgasm in the presence of another person, which ought to count, but he thinks maybe it doesn’t because it wasn’t deliberate. “I suspect grandfather will expect penetration. He is old fashioned like that.”

Tim screws up his face. “What a happy thought. Is he going to watch, too?”

“He will probably analyse the sheets,” Damian says.

“Ugh.”

“We shouldn’t dwell on that part.”

“Let’s really, really not.” Tim shudders. “Anyway, my point stands. You should be with someone you want to be with, when you’re ready. Not me, not because it’s a matter of life and death.”

Damian forces himself to sit still, as much as the direction of the conversation discomforts him. He needs Tim to take him seriously.

“I want it to be you,” he says. “I trust you and… And I find you attractive, also.” He swallows. “My birthday, in your apartment, I nearly… I wanted to kiss you. This attraction is not the result of my grandfather’s scheming. It is born of the time we have spent together, the passions we share, the efforts you have undertaken on my behalf. Additionally, you have a very pleasant face, and father’s training regime has left you with a compact musculature that is to my tastes.”

Tim presses his lips together like he’s trying not to laugh at Damian. Damian braces himself for rejection.

“Don’t look at me like that, Damian,” Tim says, and he does laugh. “I’m sorry. You just sounded like Mr Darcy, all “very fine eyes” and “you’re forcing me to propose to you”. You have a knack for making every compliment sound like it’s being dragged out of you by force. I wanted to kiss you too, before Nightwing interrupted us. Does that make it better?”

It does, a little.

Tim does have very fine eyes, at that.

Tim leans back in so they are nose to nose again. When he speaks, his voice is so soft Damian can barely hear him. “It will have to just be the once. One night. We can’t continue this in Gotham, not under Bruce’s nose.”

Damian expected Tim to stipulate something along these lines, but it stings a little.

“Grandfather will expect us to live as married,” he says.

“He can expect what he likes, but you’re still in school Damian. You’re staying under Bruce’s roof.” Tim sits back and glances around the room. “Many married couples live apart for practical reasons. You’ve got college to think about too; I’m not going to trap you in Gotham. We can revisit the decision when the time is right.”

“You will continue to allow me to attend to your needs,” Damian says. He means it.

“I don’t think I could live without you now. Are you really sure about this, Damian? You really want to go through with it?” 

“I am.”

Tim takes both of Damian’s hands. “Will you marry me, Damian?”

Damian nods.


	6. In which we celebrate a marriage

Of course they’ve been sedated and paralysed again. Tim doesn’t know why he ever expected anything else. How else does one attend their own wedding? Horse and carriages and vintage cars are so passe, you know?

He raises a hand to his face. His eyes are open, but the world is dark. It’s the kind of darkness you only get underground. He remembers being in the Batcave during a powercut, before the emergency lighting kicked in, and this is that. Here there is no reassuring flutter of wings above his head to remind him that there is a way out, a way back to the light, if only he can find it.

What _can_ he hear, then?

His own heart beat is suddenly deafening. His breath rattles in his chest and wheezes through his throat. Every blink is a thunder clap.

There must be something else here. This isn’t a sensory deprivation chamber. If this is the wedding, it’s the throne room. His memories of the space are distorted by sleep deprivation, but he’s reasonably confident it was a large circular space. A fire pit off centre, the Lazarus Pit across from it, and the throne in the centre.

He’s lying on stone. He digs his fingers into it, revelling in the texture. What else can he feel? Robes against his skin. A linen layer, and then silk. He still doesn’t have any underwear. He hopes the robes will disguise that fact when the lights come on.

Okay, so smell. He can smell smoke in the air. The fire pit has clearly been extinguished, but recently. Can he follow the smoke?

He’s climbed to his feet before he remembers why that’s a bad idea, but it doesn’t hurt. His shoulders have recovered as well. He considers sitting back down to check his soles, but he’s scared that he’ll press his fingers into open wounds without knowing it. He doesn’t know if the lack of pain is local anaesthetic or something else. Something Pit related.

He follows the smell of smoke. If he licks his finger and holds it up he can feel a difference on each side. The fire pit still holds some warmth, and it's creating an air current.

Something moves in front of him. He reacts without thinking, dropping to a defensive crouch. There’s a swish in the air over his head. He sticks a hand out, finds a knee with the heel of his palm and fells his unseen opponent.

He pictures Damian, pictures his height, and Tim’s reasonably confident he hasn’t just dislocated his future husband’s knee.

The assassin groans and tries to roll away, but the noise is enough for Tim to estimate the position of their neck and deliver a nerve strike.

He moves on, past the unconscious assassin, ears straining now for the next attack. He understands the rules of the game now, and it’s not dissimilar to the kind of training Bruce used to give him. He’s adjusting, letting the air currents tell him about the space. Even without light, people cast shadows: they shade the heat of the fire pit, the acoustics of the space, the tickle of air against his skin.

He doesn’t know a lot about League weddings, but he assumes the throne will act as a kind of altar, so Tim makes that his goal. He doesn’t know which side of the hall he’s started at, whether he should aim for the left or right of the dead fire pit, but he figures when he gets close he can circle it.

He’s attacked twice more, once by someone wielding a chain that whistles through the air, ones by someone with a garrote that smells of waxy lubricant. His bare feet detect the warm tiles of the fire pit.

And he hears Damian.

He knows it’s Damian, knows it like he knows his own heartbeat, and he wants to run to him. Something familiar in this darkness, this strangeness. He’s doing so well not dwelling on it, but it’s exhausting.

Damian’s steady breath gets closer. Tim can smell him, can feel the heat coming off him, can almost taste him. He wants him, so badly.

Still, he flinches when a hand lands on his cheek. Damian holds it steady, though, and when Tim relaxes he’s rewarded with a familiar thumb along his cheekbone.

“Drake.”

“Damian.”

They break the silence, and it breaks the spell. A green light begins to suffuse the space. Damian emerges before him in silhouette, black and green angles. His jade eyes glow in the light.

Another voice breaks in, also familiar but in the worst possible way.

“We celebrate the life eternal and the death everlasting.”

Damian pulls Tim tight against him. Tim can feel his pulse, quick and nervous. He puts his hands on the younger man’s hips, trying to ground him.

“We celebrate the stillness of blood and the swiftness of water. We celebrate the unchanging stone and the protean fire.”

Damian presses his forehead to Tim’s, a reminder of their conversation back in what Tim finds himself thinking of as their room, though it ought to be their prison. This place is getting to him.

“We celebrate the binding of two souls into one. Eternal, everlasting, unchanging, still, swift, protean. We celebrate the binding of life beyond death. We celebrate a marriage.”

“We celebrate a marriage,” Damian breaths over Tim’s lips.

“We celebrate a marriage,” Tim echoes.

The fire pit springs to life. Shadows leap across the room.

A double ended blade is brought to them. The metal is hot from the fire.

Tim swallows. Damian hadn’t mentioned what sort of cut was expected of them. This blade could pierce both their hearts in a single thrust. He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to go into the Pit.

Damian takes his hand, squeezes it, lets go and thrusts his hand onto the blade palm first. It slices through his flesh like butter.

Oh god. Tim isn’t ready for this. He didn’t sign up for this. What’s wrong with exchanging rings?

He copies Damian before he can think too hard about it. The blade is so sharp it takes several seconds for the pain to catch up with the movement. And then it burns.

He’s had worse cuts, but never self-inflicted. Every instinct in him screams to pull away, to free himself, but if he moves he’ll cut Damian deeper.

This is a terrible metaphor for marriage. Only the League of Assassin’s could think this is appropriate.

He wants to laugh. It’s bubbling behind his lips, and he focuses on Damian’s face to try and quell the rising hysteria. Three people have tried to kill him. He’s got a blade stuck between the bones of his hand. He’s marrying his baby brother.

Ra’s steps down from the throne, takes the centre of the blade in hand. Pulling free is almost harder than pushing his hand on to it. The metal drags against the muscles of his palm, his skin clinging to it. 

Damian grabs his bloody hand. It’s a clumsy grip, his own hand equally wounded. Tim interlinks his fingers with Damian’s and crooks them to grip the other man's hand, though the movement tugs the perforated skin and brings tears to Tim's eyes.

Ra's holds a goblet over their joined hands. Damian reaches up for it with his unwounded hand and Tim mirrors him. Together they take the cup from Ra’s. Together they tip it over their linked hands. The liquid that pours from it glows green.

Healing itches. Damian tightens his fingers over Tim’s hand, his bottom lip caught in his teeth as he struggles to maintain his composure.

Lights flare around the perimeter of the throne room, blinding both of them.

“We celebrate a marriage,” Ra’s intones.

“We celebrate a marriage.” A shout goes up from edge of the room, hundreds, if not thousands of people. Were they there all along? Tim can’t believe he wasn’t aware of them before.

“We celebrate a marriage,” Damian says. 

Tim opens his mouth to repeat it, but Damian’s lips are on his, and they’re soft and dry and warm. It’s barely a brush against his mouth, and it leaves Tim’s lips tingling.

They’re married.

#

They are allowed to walk back to their room, though they are flanked by row upon row of assassins. Tim notes every twist and turn, but Damian’s eyes are lowered. Their hands are still entwined.

The hatch is removed and they are lowered into the space on a platform.

The first thing Tim does, once they are back on the ground and the hatch is closed about them, is sit down and examine his feet.

There’s no sign they were ever cut.

“They have been bathed in the Pit,” Damian says, crouching beside him. “Grandfather didn’t want to waste time waiting for you to heal, nor risk you failing the trial because you couldn’t walk.”

“He weighted it in our favour.” Tim sighs. “I was attacked three times in the dark. You?”

“Four, though I think one might not have intended to be an attack so much as a misplaced guest. I spent some time tracing my way around the outer wall.”

“I went for the fire pit. I could feel the warmth.”

There’s champagne on the low table and a selection of delicacies. Nothing that won’t wait if they don’t eat it immediately. Tim has a different appetite on his mind, and judging by the blush rising in Damian’s cheeks so does he.

“I was so relieved when I found you,” Tim says. “That’s symbolic, isn’t it? Finding each other in the dark?”

“The whole thing has the blunt metaphor of a child’s fairy tale. Grandfather might as well have worn a wolf skin and told us to pick flowers for each other.” Damian scowls. “It lacks delicacy. It lacks _romance_.”

Tim smiles at him. “Well, one day, I hope you have the romantic wedding you deserve.”

Damian shakes his head. “‘Deserve’ is not the word I would use. I think if we start down that path, we will find ourselves at odds very quickly.”

Tim remembers yesterday’s (last night’s?) conversation. Damian deserves a better first time than this, too, under duress and possibly observed. He deserves to be romanced, but Tim is at a loss. He has a vision of himself awkwardly trying to feed Damian strawberries.

“Tim?”

Damian is nervous, and Tim reaches out without thinking, pressing a bare foot to Damian’s.

Damian leaps to his feet and backs away.

Smooth, Drake. Real romantic. Tim mentally rolls his eyes at himself as he stands up.

Damian opens his mouth, closes it, and flees into the bathroom.

Tim looks around the small space. The bed is made, new, fresh sheets turned back. Only half the oil lamps are lit, giving the room a moody glow. Incense has been lit recently.

There’s… oh, there’s a small bottle of oil next to the bed. He picks the bottle up and opens it. The oil is unscented, and when he pours a little onto his hand it comes up to body temperature quickly. He rubs his fingers together. The fluid is viscous and slippery. It’s completely clear, and when he touches the tip of his tongue to his fingers, he finds the flavour is broadly neutral. A little mineral, perhaps, but inoffensive.

It’s lubricant. But there’s no condoms to go with it. Tim’s clean, at least, but condoms make cleaning up so much simpler.

Damian returns and Tim jumps. He puts the bottle down hastily, guilty as a teenager caught with a palmful of hand lotion. Damian’s eyes widen at the sight of it.

Tim stays by the bed and lets Damian approach him. He’s still nervous, but his movements are less hesitant than before. Tim knows his baby bat well enough to recognise when Damian has made a decision,. He’s put second guessing aside, and now he’s acting.

Damian stops in front of Tim and puts a hand on Tim's hip. He draws Tim close, lowers his head, and presses a closed-mouth kiss to Tim’s lips.

He pulls back before Tim can really start to respond and Tim follows him instinctively, lips parting to nip at Damian’s full bottom lip. Damian’s mouth drops open with a gasp, and then they’re locked together, Tim’s arms coming up around Damian’s shoulders and Damian’s hands on the small of Tim’s back.

He’s been haunted by the promise of this kiss since Damian’s birthday. The phantom of those lips has invaded his dreams, the ghost of Damian’s body heat has followed him around the apartment, the lingering smell of Damian’s skin has clung to his memories. Now Damian is here, real and solid and bold and bright. Now Damian’s lips are on Tim’s and Tim knows this kiss was worth waiting for.

This kiss was worth marrying him for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is your first heads up, but the next chapter is basically pure porn. I'll be upping the rating on this accordingly.


	7. In which the marriage is consumated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the rating is going up, I've apparently set everyone's expectations really high, and I'm glad this is going up on a Friday because this is definitely not safe for work. This is porn. This is quite a lot of porn - this chapter is twice the length of any of the others. Enjoy!

Tim hasn’t kissed anyone like this in a while. Kissed like the point of it was kissing, not merely as something to do while hands fiddled with fastenings and minds skipped ahead to whats and whos and wheres. Damian is a good kisser. His lips are firm against Tim’s and his movements controlled; when he swipes his tongue along Tim’s bottom lip Tim can feel the weight of the decision behind it. This is what he thinks Tim will like. Tim opens his mouth to let Damian in, laps at Damian’s tongue and lets the taller man take possession of Tim’s mouth. 

Tim’s moaning, pressing flush against Damian. He’s up on tiptoes, hands bunched in the fabric of Damian’s robe. There’s no disguising in the flimsy fabric that he’s starting to get hard, and Damian shivers as Tim’s cock presses against his hip. Damian makes a breathy noise, the first intimation he might be losing control, and tightens his arms around Tim to the point where he’s taking most of Tim’s weight. Damian's vice-like grip makes Tim feel secure, the world reducing to a manageable selection of sensations. Damian has him. Damian wants him. Damian won't let him go.

Tim breaks the kiss, panting.

“Against the wall,” he gasps. “Push me against the wall.”

Damian spins them around and slams Tim back against the streaky rock. Tim presses into it and lifts his hips, grinding against Damian’s leg. Damian’s hard against his hip. His hands have slipped down, under Tim’s buttocks, and he kneads the muscles. Tim pulls Damian against him, settles his weight into Damian’s hands, and jumps to wrap his legs around Damian’s waist.

“Timothy!”

Damian grinds up against him, groans, fumbles with his hands, nearly lets go, but Tim’s legs are locked around him now and the wall is taking its share of Tim’s weight.

“Don’t stop,” Tim says. “I want to feel the weight of you, pinning me here. Keep kissing me. Keep _touching_ me.”

A distant voice in the back of his head, that sounds too much like Bernard Dowd, says “bossy sex voice”. And maybe it is, but Damian is devouring him, confident again now he has instructions to follow, and this might be something that _works_ for them.

Tim’s cock aches to be touched. It’s tenting the linen of his tunic, little damp smears soaking through as it drips precum. His robe has fallen open and he’s conscious of how little fabric there is between them. Damian is hard too; his erection is grinding against the cleft of Tim’s ass and the precum is soaking through both their tunics so Tim can feel precisely how wet Damian is getting him. He’s thrusting against Tim, trying to kiss him with the rhythm, but everything’s starting to go a bit ragged and Damian is clutching at him like a drowning man.

“Are you close, baby bat?”

Damian presses his face into Tim’s shoulder and gasps for air. He’s trying to hold his hips still but he’s failing, the need for friction, for release, too much to deny. He’s nearly sobbing with his attempts to restrain himself.

“I have to wait,” Damian whines into Tim’s neck. “It’s too soon. But I can’t- I _need_ ”

“You can,” Tim says, pressing kisses into the curve of Damian’s shoulder where the robe has fallen away. “I want you to feel good, baby bat. I’m going to make you feel so good, over and over.” Damian’s hips are stuttering against his, his thrusts becoming shorter and more desperate. “I’m going to make you come so many times tonight, Damian. You can come now.”

“Tell me again.”

“Come for me, Damian. Come now.”

And he does. His fingers claw into Tim’s skin, his teeth bite down, hard, on Tim’s neck, and he thrusts against Tim’s cleft with a final muffled grunt as he lets himself go.

It wouldn’t take much for Tim to follow him over the edge, but he holds back. He rocks his hips, riding out Damian’s orgasm, ignoring the spreading wet heat and focusing on the friction against his own cock.

“You’re so beautiful, baby bat. So good for me. You didn’t even touch yourself, did you, and you came because I told you to. You make me feel so wanted, Damian. You don’t even know.”

Damian lets go of Tim to brace both arms against the wall, his orgasm leaving him boneless. Tim feet drop back to the ground, his arms still around Damian's neck. Damian boxes him in, kisses him with none of the control he had earlier, and shivers against him.

“Beautiful, messy boy,” Tim says. Damian keens against his mouth. “Let’s get rid of these clothes.”

Damian steps back and Tim’s full weight falls on his feet again. He’s lightheaded. This isn’t how he expected this to go. Watching Damian unravel is… it’s everything he’s ever wanted. He wants to do it over and over again.

“How many times do you think I can make you come?” Tim asks. He means the question seriously - he wants to figure out how much he needs to pace himself - but his voice comes out husky and full of want. Damian stares at him, something like wonder in his eyes.

Tim strips out of his clothes. He’s long past self-consciousness, and he wants to see Damian naked. Damian’s eyes rove over his body, stopping on his still hard cock, and a blush stains his cheeks as he snaps his eyes back to Tim’s.

“You can look,” Tim says, amused. “You can do more than look.” 

He reaches out and tugs Damian’s robe down over his arms. Damian shrugs the outer layer off, and tangles his fingers in the hem of the tunic, still watching Tim.

“I hurt you,” Damian says, reaching out to finger the bite mark he left in Tim’s neck.

Tim twists his head to try and get a look at the bruise. Damian hasn’t broken the skin, but he’ll be carrying the crescent moon of Damian’s jaw for some time to come.

“You marked me,” Tim says. “I like it. I’m yours.”

Those are the magic words, apparently, because Damian tears his tunic off over his head and throws himself back against Tim, licking at the corner of Tim’s mouth and clutching at his waist.

Tim turns his head to the side, tries to get enough space to talk, but Damian is sucking a hickey into his neck and it makes his cock pulse against Damian’s stomach.

“The bed,” Tim manages to say in between moans.

Damian picks him up. He’s not expecting it, and he flings his arms around Damian’s shoulders to steady himself. It’s barely two paces to the bed, and then they’re falling on it, Damian’s weight pinning Tim against the mattress, the curtains tangling around them.

Tim wriggles back, yanks the curtains free from beneath him, but Damian stays put and keeps kissing and nipping at Tim’s flesh as he moves. Tim shuffles until his hips are on the edge of the bed and brings his feet up to rest on the mattress, lettings his knees fall open. Damian lies between them, head next to Tim’s navel.

“Tell me what to do,” Damian says.

“What do you want to do?” Tim asks.

Damian stares along Tim’s body, meeting his eyes over Tim’s wet, pink flesh. He licks his lips, and there’s no doubt in Tim’s mind what he wants to do. What he desperately wants Damian to do.

“Have you ever done it before? Gone down on a guy?”

Damian shakes his head, his hair tickling Tim’s abs. Tim’s dick is pressed against Damian’s bare chest, soaking the fine hairs there with precum every time Damian’s green eyes flash at him.

“Instruct me,” Damian says.

Tim fists his hands into the sheets and tries to remain coherent enough to talk.

“Keep working your way down. Keep marking me.”

Damian sucks a bruise on Tim’s stomach, eyes still latched onto Tim’s. Tim wants to hold his gaze, but he can’t stop himself from throwing his head back and moaning. Damian nuzzles the trail of hair on Tim’s lower abdomen, kisses his navel, and drops another couple of inches lower to leave another bruise. His sucks and nips his way down, until Tim hears the thud of his knees hitting the floor and Damian’s head is framed between his legs.

Damian turns his head and kisses his way from Tim’s knee to the crease where his thigh joins his crotch. He repeats the movement on the other side, and this time he stops when he gets to the bottom. His breathe tickles the underside of Tim’s straining cock.

“You’re so good,” Tim says. “God, Damian.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Wrap… wrap your hand around the base. Kiss me at the tip.”

Damian’s hand is firm and his lips are feather light. Tim digs his heels into the bed and resists every quivering muscle in his body that wants to thrust up into Damian’s mouth.

Damian kisses Tim’s slit, draws back with lips shiny with precum. Kisses him again and opens his mouth, parting his lips and letting his tongue dip out like he’s kissing Tim’s mouth.

“Take the head of my cock in your mouth. Mind your teeth.”

Damian bares his teeth at Tim, and it’s reassuring seeing him comfortable enough to tease. Damian relaxes into a smile, presses a kiss to Tim’s thigh, and wraps his lips over his teeth and lowers his head.

His mouth is hot and wet and heaven. He presses his tongue to the underside of Tim’s head, experimenting with the pressure. Tim feels the movement of his jaw as he finds a comfortable position to hold it open.

“Don’t make yourself uncomfortable. If your jaw gets sore, pull off,” Tim says.

Damian hums assent around Tim’s cock. Tim groans.

“Move… move your hand.”

Oh god, it’s everything he needs. Damian’s grip is firm without being too tight, his thumb rubbing along the vein on the base of Tim’s cock. He starts to bob his head in time with his hand, gradually taking more and more of Tim into his mouth.

Tim can’t help it: as Damian moves up his hips follow, thrusting up too fast. Damian jerks his head back, choking.

“Sorry, sorry.” Tim is desperate, so desperate. “Hold me down. Use your other hand and hold me down so I can’t-” His hips buck again, urgently seeking the warmth of Damian’s mouth.

“You’re close,” Damian says, looking down at Tim’s wet cock.

“Yes,” Tim breathes. “I’ll warn you, before I come. Just, please, Damian, please don’t stop, please suck me. Your mouth is so good. Hold me down and suck me, baby bat.”

Damian doesn’t need more persuading. He spreads one large hand over Tim’s hip, pushing his thigh down into the bed, and hooks Tim’s other leg over his shoulder. He rewraps his other hand around Tim’s cock and lowers his mouth onto it.

He’s barely started sucking when Tim’s gasping a warning, trying to squirm away even as he feels his belly tightening, every sensation too much and not enough. Damian hesitates and Tim can’t hold it back, he’s coming in a hot rush, hips juddering in Damian’s grip. Damian lets his cock fall from his lips as it pulses, jets of cum painting Damian’s cheek.

“Oh god, oh baby bat, you’re so pretty, you’re so good.” Tim can’t stop babbling, can’t stop watching himself come on Damian’s face, can’t stop staring at that smug look.

He goes limp on the bed, legs flopping open, stomach soft, hands loose in the tangled sheets. He feels Damian move between his legs and makes the effort to unhook his legs from Damian’s shoulder so the younger man can crawl onto the bed with him.

Damian climbs onto the bed so his head is on the pillow, reaching down to Tim’s shoulder to help him orientate himself the same way. He still has Tim’s cum on his face, and Tim reaches up to wipe it off. Damian catches his wrist and licks his fingers. He still looks pleased with himself, and Tim wants to tell him he deserves to, but the only words he can form at the moment are “baby bat”.

Tim rolls onto his side and kisses Damian, tasting his cum on Damian’s mouth. Damian kisses him back hungrily, and Tim can feel Damian’s cock, hard again, against his well kissed thighs. He pulls back so he can get a proper look at Damian. He’s bigger than Tim, thicker and darker. His pubes are neatly trimmed, shaved across the top into a straight line, and Tim reaches down to brush the short hair with his finger tips. Damian pushes up, cock bumping against Tim’s wrist. He’s uncut too, shiny pink head emerging from dusky skin, and Tim wraps his hand around him. He’s every romance novel cliche Tim can think of, steel in silk, stone in satin. He’s hard and needy and thrusts into Tim’s loose grip with little whines of frustration.

“Oh, baby bat. So good to me,” Tim sighs, and catches Damian’s pursed lips in another wet kiss. He has to decide what he wants to do with Damian next. “Would you like to fuck me, baby bat?”

Damian’s hips stutter.

“You’d like that?” Tim asks.

Damian swallows, his adam’s apple visibly bobbing in his throat.

“Tim,” he says, voice catching. “Tim, would _you_ fuck me?”

The request takes Tim’s breath away. His oversensitive cock twitches.

“Of course, baby bat.”

Tim rolls onto his back and pulls Damian over him. Damian props himself up on one elbow and rests one leg between Tim’s. Tim tilts his head up, catching Damian’s bottom lip between his teeth. His face is still sticky with Tim’s cum, and he should do something about that, but Damian is grinding down against him and whining into his mouth.

Tim licks his way into Damian’s mouth and takes control of the kiss. He runs a hand up Damian’s ribs, tracing his fingers over old scars. Damian shivers under this touch. They’re both covered in a light sheen of sweat that has them sliding against each other, and Tim slips a hand between them to find Damian’s nipple. He circles his thumb over it a couple of time.

“Pinch me,” Damian tells him. His pupils are big as saucers, the green shrunk down to a fine line, and Tim can see his own eyes reflected in them.

Tim does as he’s asked, and Damian’s hips jerk.

Tim’s starting to get hard again, but he’s still a way off being ready to fuck Damian. Damian is clearly aching, precum spurting across Tim’s abs, and when Tim pinches his nipple again Damian whimpers.

He’s so beautiful.

Tim lets go of Damian’s nipple and puts a hand on Damian’s shoulder. He eases out from beneath him. Damian resists, tries to follow him.

“Lie down for me, baby bat,” Tim says. “Trust me.”

Damian relaxes back into the pillows, head turned so he can watch Tim’s movements.

Tim takes a moment just to admire his lover. His golden skin in the lamp light, shadows flickering across his broad back. The beads of sweat dotting the hollow between his shoulder blades. The dimple of his lower back and his firm ass, cheeks pert. The dusting of hair over his thighs and hard curve of his calves.

“You’re so perfect,” Tim tells him. “I want to worship every inch of you.”

Damian’s smile is surprisingly shy, after everything they’ve already done. Tim’s reminded of Damian’s virginity. He wonders precisely what Damian and Jon did get up to, whether he’s the first person to behold Damian in all his glory.

Tim leans down, puts his mouth by Damian’s ear, and whispers huskily, “I’m going to make you come again, Damian. I’m going to make you writhe and beg and come undone and you’re always going to think of me when you feel this way.”

“Please,” Damian hisses, one long, drawn out breath of a word. His fingers clutch the pillow beneath his face. 

Tim kisses his cheek, and starts working his way down Damian’s body. He kisses Damian’s scars. He kisses Damian’s quivering muscles. He kisses every place a bone meets the skin, his shoulder blades and his ribs and his hips. He kisses each bead of sweat away. Damian writhes beneath the barely there brushes of Tim’s lips. He buries his face in the pillow and moans for Tim.

Tim reaches Damian’s ass after what feels like a decade of exploration, no piece of skin untouched by his mouth. He wonders what state Damian’s cock is in beneath him. Both of Damian’s hands are fisted in the pillow at his head.

“You’re so good for me, baby bat. I’m going to reward you,” Tim says. “Are you ready?”

“Pleeeease.”

He kisses Damian’s cheeks and runs the tip of his nose over the curve of Damian’s glutes. Damian thrusts down into the mattress, and cants his hips up, seeking stimulation.

Tim shifts onto his knees, legs on either side of Damian’s and reaches up for one of the unused pillows at the top of the bed. He lifts Damian’s hips up and slips the pillow beneath them, changing the angle to better suit himself. Damian pushes his ass up and presses his face into the bed.

Tim spreads Damian’s cheeks with both hands. The cold air along his cleft makes Damian shiver, and Tim smiles reassuringly even though Damian can’t see it. 

He kisses his way along the cleft until he’s kissing Damian’s hole. He remembers Damian fleeing to the bathroom before they started, and it’s clear the teen took time to get himself clean for Tim. He dips his tongue out, pressing the point of it against Damian’s pucker, and is rewarded with an obscene noise.

“Ever thought about this, Damian?”

There’s a rustle as Damian shakes his head into the pillow.

“Never?”

“I... I don’t know… I…”

“I’m going to eat you out, baby bat. I’m going to use my mouth to get you wet and ready for me.”

Damian swears in Arabic.

Tim lifts Damian’s hips a little higher and slides a hand beneath him. He uses the now copious precum to slick Damian’s cock up. He presses his mouth to Damian’s hole and pushes his tongue against it, forcing the ring of muscle to start giving for him, and starts jerking Damian’s cock.

Damian rocks back and forth in his grip, pushing into his hand and thrusting back against his mouth. He’s still talking in Arabic, words snagging on in-drawn gasps and guttural moans. Tim eases him open with his tongue, loosens him up, and when Damian’s ready he brings his other hand up and slips a finger inside.

Damian comes, shouting in Arabic and shaking like a leaf. Tim allows himself a moment to just feel entirely self-satisfied.

Damian’s body slumps sideways, dislodging Tim’s grip. He lies on his side in a near foetal position, eyes closed.

“Hey, baby bat, you okay?”

“I’m going to think of you,” Damian says, “every time I feel like that.”

“That’s right, baby bat.”

“How am I ever going to feel that way without you?”

Tim smiles and presses a kiss to Damian’s hip.

“You will, baby bat.”

But Damian shakes his head and curls tighter on himself.

“Do you still want me to fuck you, Damian?” Tim asks.

Damian nods.

“Do you want to wait a minute?”

Damian nods again.

“Okay, baby bat. Move over a little? I don’t want to lie in the wet spot.”

Damian shuffles back and Tim lies down next to him, face to face. He rests one arm on Damian's waist and leans in to kiss the tip of Damian's nose.

"Are you done?" Tim asks. "It's okay."

Damian puts his arm around Tim and draws him close, tucking Tim's head under his chin. He smells like sex, musky and sweaty and bitter.

"You're still hard," Damian points out.

"Oh no, not an erection. How ever will I survive," Tim intones, deadpan.

He feels rather than hears Damian's chuckle, deep in his chest.

"Seriously, Damian, if you're spent, we're done." Tim nuzzles closer. He's warm, the bed is soft, and he's already had one of the best blow jobs his life. He could definitely sleep. "Anything else you want to try, we can do tomorrow."

Damian shifts against him. "I am not... spent." He traces a finger along Tim's side. "I'm processing."

"Processing?"

"What you did. It's not an act I had ever conceived of."

"Really?" Tim snickers. Damian's fingers still. "Don't give me too much credit, Damian. I didn't invent rimming." Tim wiggles until Damian starts caressing him again. "You don't watch much porn?"

"Very little," Damian says. "In that house is hard to shake the feeling you're being watched."

"Mmm, I remember. I bought a burner phone specifically."

Damian shifts. "I wish I'd thought of that," he admits. "Though it would also be hard to explain the bank transactions."

"Remind me when we get back. I have some stuff I think you'd like; I can set you up with a subscription through one of my accounts, so you don't have to worry about what Bruce might stumble upon. I've double checked the studios, as well, so I'm pretty confident it's all above board."

He can't say he's ever thought about recommending porn to anyone before, but he likes the idea of sharing something like this with Damian. Once they return to Gotham and have to put all this behind them they'll still have a connection.

"What is it like to perform? Rimming?"

Tim pulls away from Damian's chest to look up at him. His lip is curled with disgust.

"You're thinking about the taste," Tim laughs. "Yeah, is not great, but if your partner keeps themself nice and clean it's not too bad. You're very fastidious." Tim squeezes Damian's bicep. "It's worth it for the view, though. Watching you get wetter and wetter with nothing but my spit, watching you open up under my tongue, watching you clench as you come."

He's working himself back up again just talking about it. Damian's mouth has fallen open, his tongue rests on the edge of his lip. Tim surges up on the bed to kiss him, press his tongue against Damian's and feel that hunger in Damian's mouth.

Damian breaks the kiss. "At the end, that wasn't your tongue."

"No, my finger. When I fuck you I'll open you up with my fingers first. Get you ready for me."

Damian rearranges himself on the bed, extracting the arm pressed the mattress and sliding it under Tim's neck. His other arm falls back, and Tim wonders he's going to roll onto his back to get more comfortable, but he doesn't. Tim shifts closer, letting his erection fall against Damian's hip and using the pressure to relieve just a fraction of the _want_ that's building in him. Damian pulls him back into a kiss, arm around his shoulders to pin Tim to him at just the right angle to plunder his mouth.

Tim wants both of Damian's arms around him, to be held tight in his embrace. He wraps his arm around Damian's waist and finds Damian's forearm against his own back. As they kiss, Tim let's his hand wander, down to Damian's wrist, and then-

"Are you fingering yourself?" Tim breaks away.

Damian blushes, and starts to pull his hand back, but Tim catches his arm and pushes it back into its original position.

"Don't stop," Tim says. "Fuck, baby bat. I want you to feel good. Make yourself feel good for me."

Damian whines, a frustrated little most in the back of his throat. "It's not as good as when you did it." He reaches for Tim's hand, tries to guide it down between his cheeks, but Tim's too far up the bed to reach.

"You can be just as good for yourself," Tim reassures him. "Trust me."

"Do you do it? On your own?"

"Yes, baby bat."

Damian shudders, and Tim can feel his cock starting to swell against Tim's leg again. Oh, to be eighteen again. Not that Tim's refractory period is anything to be sniffed at, and is probably much the same as it was a few years ago.

"You like picturing that?" Tim asks.

Damian nods. His eyes are squeezed shut.

"Picturing me, thinking of you, baby bat? Thinking of your hole, all wet and ready for me."

Tim's picturing it, and he loses the battle against temptation, taking his throbbing cock in hand. Even just gripping it is a relief. This could all be over in a few short strokes if he's not careful.

"Tell me what to do," Damian says. "Tell me how to make myself ready for you."

That’s nearly enough to send him over the edge, and Tim squeezes the base of his cock tightly, pushing the sensations back.

"Roll on to your back," he says, trying to focus on what Damian needs from him. "I'll put the pillow back under your hips. It'll help you find the right angle."

Damian follows Tim's instructions, lets Tim position him. He's gorgeous, sprawled out on the sweat-soaked sheets, half hard cock resting against his thigh. He lets Tim guide his arm under him, find the right spot. When he does he tilts his hips up, knowing instinctively how to give himself the best access.

Tim sits above him, watching, stroking his own cock with loose fingers and his thumb against the glans. He wishes he had a cock ring, to stave off his own orgasm for longer. Denial makes his toes curl, but he didn't get to explore it often when casual sex partners are just after a quickie.

Damian has the pad of his forefinger against his hole.

"Wait," Tim says. "Let me get the lube."

Damian pouts, and pushes his finger in before Tim can move. It's just the tip, and he's already a little stretched, but he way he scowls suggests it's not the experience he was hoping for.

"Spit dries too quickly," Tim says. "You'll hurt yourself. Be patient for me, baby bat."

He scrambles off the bed and finds the bottle.

"Hand."

Damian extracts his finger and holds his hand out. Tim pours a little of the fluid into it, and takes Damian's hand in his, caressing Damian's fingers until he deems them slick enough. It had the added advantage when he returns his hand to his own cock, it's good and slippery as well.

"Good," he says. "Now, that first finger."

Damian obeys.

"How does that feel? Better?"

"Not as good as your mouth," Damian says.

"My mouth is not at your beck and call. I want to see you look after yourself, Damian. I want to know when I can't be there you'll still be able to make yourself feel good. Make yourself think of me."

"Never think of anyone else again," Damian says, and there's a raw honesty in his voice that's a little frightening. This is the intensity that scared Jon away. Tim knows it's not healthy, but the idea that he's that important to Damian, that significant, that Tim _belongs_ to him now is exhilarating. He's never been that to anyone, not his parents, not Batman. He's the replacement. He's the replaceable. He's an easy to forget about inconvenience. He's the one who gets left behind.

"Promise me," Tim says, voice as wrecked as Damian's.

"I promise, ya amar."

Tim's giddy. He tries to remember what they're doing.

"Are you ready for a second finger?"

Damian nods.

"Gently, then. Take your first out and ease then in together."

Damian's fingers are nail-deep and his hole is tight around them, flushed red with the stretch.

"Slowly, baby bat. Be gentle with yourself."

Tim wonders if anyone's ever asked that of Damian before. From the way Damian looks at him along the length of his body, he thinks not.

"Can you go a little deeper?" Tim asks. "Keep your fingers together. Take a deep breath, and as you exhale push. We're aiming for the first knuckle, but you don't have to get there all in one go."

Damian breathes out slowly and Tim watches his fingers slide deeper.

"How's that, baby bat? Is it good?"

Damian nods, but Tim can see his cock softening.

"More lube," Tim says. "Let me have your hand back."

He grabs the lube bottle and pours more over Damian's hand, spilling some onto the bed. Damian looks more comfortable this time, and he smiles for Tim.

"A little deeper, baby bat, then trying bending your fingers. There's a knot of nerves, you just have to find it."

"Prostate," Damian says.

"That's right."

Damian squirms, repositioning his arm to find a better angle. Tim finds this easiest on his own sitting up, but he wants to watch Damian. Wants to be able to help, if Damian needs him to.

"Ah!"

Tim grins. "You found it."

Damian's cock twitches and starts to swell as Damian finds it again, and again. He's pushing his fingers much deeper now, opening himself out further, and Tim doesn't even have to prompt him to add a third.

"I could watch you do this all day," Tim says. "You're so beautiful, Damian."

His own cock is aching, dark with blood, and he thinks maybe he could come just watching Damian writhe on the bed.

"I want more." Damian's voice drops to a growl. "I want to be full. I want you to fill me up."

It's enough to nearly break Tim, but he gropes for the last vestiges of his restraint. "Are you sure, Damian? You can come like this. I could watch you."

Damian presses his face into the mattress as his hips buck, precum leaking into his belly.

"I want you to fuck me," he says. "Please."

Tim's heard Damian say please as often today as he has in his whole life up to this point.

Tim positions himself between Damian's legs. He wonders if he should ask Damian to roll over, but be knows how flexible the other man is, and he wants to see his face. He lifts Damian's hips up, and thinks about eating him out again.

"Please," Damian begs him. "Fuck me."

Tim slips two fingers inside Damian, then three, getting a sense of how ready he is.

"You've opened yourself up for me so well," he says. "You're so ready for me, aren't you, baby bat?"

Damian keens.

Tim places Damian's ankles over his shoulders and lines himself up, pouring the last of the small bottle of lube over his dick. He meets Damian's eyes and smiles at him.

"I love you, baby bat."

He pushes the head of his cock in. It goes in easily, but Tim pauses, lets Damian adjust. Damian is tight and hot around him, and Tim's not sure he's going to last. He leans forward, putting a hand on either side of Damian's body and folding the other man nearly in half. Damian's eyes are wide.

"Okay, baby bat?"

Damian nods.

"Just relax for me. Let know when you're ready."

It's hard staying still, but Tim knows Damian needs time for the burn of his muscles to fade into the background.

Damian tangles his hands in the bedsheets. "'mready." His voice is small, but certain.

Tim eases in, a fraction of an inch at a time. Damian's calves quiver by Tim's ears. His abs are rigid with tension.

"You're doing so well, baby bat. Any time you want to stop, we can. Tell me if you want me to pull back out."

Damian takes a deep breath and exhales, and Tim feels him relax around him. He slips in up the the hilt, completely sheathed in Damian.

"I'm there," Tim says. "Talk to me, Damian."

"I feel very full. I didn't think you were... that big."

Damian blushes and Tim laughs.

"You're bigger," Tim acknowledges. "If we did this the other way around, I'd have been asking you to be so patient."

He really wants to do it the other way around, have Damian inside him, ride him, but it's dangerous to think like that. This is their one night.

"Is it good?" Damian asks.

"Oh, baby bat, you've no idea. You're so hot and tight." Tim shifts, trying to line up with the place Damian's fingers had found inside him. "I'm not going to last long," he admits. "I'm sorry."

Damian squirms under him. His cock is leaking against his belly, wet between then.

"Touch yourself," Tim says.

Damian reaches between them, his knuckles grazing Tim's abs. As he starts to stroke himself Tim feels him tighten around his cock.

"Can I fuck you, Damian? Can I move?"

He'll go mad if he doesn't.

"Please, ya amar."

Tim sighs with relief. He tries to move slowly, but Damian meets his every thrust with a lift of his hips.

"Harder!"

Tim can't refuse him. He buries himself deep inside Damian, over and over. He wanted to wait for Damian to come first, but he can't. He can feel it building in the pit of his stomach and behind his eyes and between his legs, and he thinks of Damian trying to keep himself from coming, falling apart with Tim's legs around his waist, the way all Damian's self-control and restraint just dissolved as Tim gave him permission to let go. Tim tries to deny himself that same permission, to hold it together for Damian just for a little longer, but Damian is falling apart beneath him all over again and Tim did that, is doing that. Tim comes with his whole body, every muscle singing as the orgasm forces itself from him.

He's still thrusting, still coming in little aftershocks, when he feels Damian follow him over the edge. He whimpers as Damian clenches around his oversensitive cock, wringing the last drops from him, and it's like he's being turned inside out. He's completely wrung out and he collapses over Damian, panting for air.

It takes him a few minutes to come back to himself. He's still inside Damian, softening, and Damian's still awkwardly bent with his knees around his ears. Tim eases back, slips out of Damian, and lets Damian's legs fall back to the bed. He lays straight back down on top of his lover, face perilously close to the ropes of cum cooling on Damian's stomach and chest.

"Now," Damian says, "I'm spent."

Tim can't even muster words, just gives Damian a thumbs up. It's possibly the dorkiest thing he's ever done during sex, including the time he misquoted Star Trek, and he doesn't care.

They lie peacefully together for a while, until Damian starts squirming beneath him.

"Tim?"

It takes a couple of tries, but Tim eventually summons the energy to push himself up on his elbows and look up at Damian.

Damian has a strange expression on his face. He'd still squirming, pressing his legs together, and he looks a little alarmed.

Oh, right. First time, and no condoms.

"You should go to the bathroom," Tim says, rolling off him so he can get up. "Unfortunate fact of nature: what goes up must come down."

Disgust crosses Damian's face, and Tim smiles at it.

"I'm sorry, I should have warned you."

Damian eases out of bed and walks gingerly across the room. Tim watches a pearl of cum dribble down his thigh. Poor, fastidious Damian. Tim hopes he isn't going to be put off bottoming too much.

The bed is a wreck. The sheets are a screwed up ball beneath him, soaked with sweat and lube and cum. The pillows are flat and misshapen; one is missing entirely. The smell of sex, so appealing the middle of it all, is starting to go stale.

He forces himself out of the bed and make a start on straightening out the sheets, but it's a lost cause. His muscles are still jelly, and he'd happy lie down in the damp nest they've made, but Damian deserves better. Tim wonders how you call room service in a dungeon. Ra's couldn't have put them up on a nice hotel on their wedding night?

 _Did Ra's watch?_ he wonders. _Hell of a show._

Oh, but thinking of room service, he's starving. He feels like he hadn't been this hungry in his life. And there's still everything laid out for them, a now warm bottle of champagne to go with it.

He tears down one of the gauzy curtains from the bed and wraps it around himself like a risqué toga. He uses one of the curtain ties to pull his hair back out of his eyes, and wipes the worst of the dried cum from various body parts with a relatively clean corner of bed sheet. Presentable, he's not, but for wedding night chic he thinks he'll pass.

He's just poured two glasses of champagne when Damian rejoins him. His hair is damp and water still clings to his bare skin in places. Tim pulls him down for a kiss, and he smells clean and fresh.

Damian reclines cautiously on the silk cushions, very carefully avoiding directly sitting down. Tim smiles at him and passes him a glass. They chink them together, no toast, and drink.

"How are you feeling?" Tim asks.

"Exhausted. Exhilarated. Ravenous."

"Satisfied?"

Damian sighs. It's simultaneously content and discontent. "Like I'll never be satisfied again," he says. "It can't always be like that, can it? How does anyone get anything done?"

Tim laughs. "It's not, no. It's nice to have the leisure to really enjoy sex," he admits. "And I did _really_ enjoy that."

"So it's not just my inexperience?" Damian helps himself to to a handful of pistachios. "I thought maybe it was just the difference compared with being on my own." He looks shy, suddenly. "I wish I'd had more experience, before tonight. I was very conscious of my ignorance."

"You were incredible, baby bat. I meant it, about how good it was." Tim grins. "You take instruction well, let me tell you."

"You give instruction well," Damian says. He yawns. “What state is the bed in?”

“Sticky,” Tim says.

Damian pulls a face, and takes another sip of champagne.

They eat in comfortable silence, until alcohol and exhaustion start dragging at their eyelids. Tim arranges the cushions on the floor and untangles himself from the bed curtain. Damian settles on his side and Tim lies down beside him, draping the curtain over both of them. Damian pulls him close, pressing his face into Tim’s hair and pulling Tim tight against his chest.

“Bahlem feek,” Damian murmurs into Tim’s hair. “Ya amar.”

Tim’s last thought before he falls asleep is that he really needs to learn his husband’s language.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone have fun? :P
> 
> I was in two minds about this, because it's implausibly good sex for a situation involving a virgin, and if this were original fic I'd probably scale that back a bit. But it's not, it's fanfic, it's id fic, and there's no reason for them not to have a really good time before all the angst kicks back in again. And it was a lot of fun to write.


	8. In which the sun cruelly insists on rising

Damian wakes between cotton sheets. A phone is ringing.

For a moment he thinks it was all a dream, but his posterior is still sore, and Tim is still pressed against him.

Damian props himself up on one arm and scrubs at his eyes, peering blearily around the room. It’s a hotel room, bland and plain, and the phone is on a table opposite the foot of the bed. He swears at it in Arabic, but it keeps ringing.

He pushes the sheets back and crawls down the bed. Tim is starting to stir as well. Sunlight peeks around the edges of the curtains, and it’s nice to be above ground again.

“Good morning Mr Wayne! This is your eight am wake up call! You have two hours until your flight leaves. Would you like breakfast?”

Damian growls at the phone. The perky voice on the other end falters.

“Coffee, Mr Wayne?”

Damian puts the phone down. He doesn’t want coffee. He doesn’t want a wake up call, or a flight, or breakfast.

“Damian?”

He twists to look back at Tim.

He doesn’t want their wedding night to be over, but the sun has risen. 

“Where are we?”

“A hotel room. I don’t know where, but near enough to an airport that we have time for breakfast before our flight at ten.”

Tim sits up, sheets pooling at his waist. His torso is covered in bruises and bitemarks. His hair is tousled and his eyes are barely open and he takes Damian’s breath away.

Damian climbs off the bed and turns his back on his husband. Can he even call him that now? They agreed one night, to satisfy grandfather.

He opens the curtains and lets the whole room light up. Behind him he hears Tim gasp.

“I apologise, I should have warned you.”

“It’s not the light,” Tim says. “No, wait, sorry.”

Damian turns around and frowns at him.

Tim chews on his bottom lip. Damian wants to crawl back in bed and chew it for him.

“You’re beautiful in the light,” Tim says. “I’m sorry. Everything’s still… it doesn’t feel quite real yet. I don’t know if we’re free and it’s over or not.”

Damian sits down on the edge of the bed.

“We’re free,” he says. He doesn’t want it to be over.

“We agreed, before-” Tim falters, looks down at his cotton-covered knees and fidgets with the sheet. He swallows, and his head comes back up. “We agreed it would be just the one night. That we’d find a way to make things normal afterwards.”

“We did,” Damian says.

Tim’s mouth twists in a self-deprecating smile. “I guess part of normal is not telling you you’re beautiful.”

Damian wants it to be normal. He wants to climb back into that bed, untangled Tim’s hands from the sheet, and kiss him and hold and listen to Tim tell him how beautiful he is over and over. He twists, starting to reach for Tim, and catches himself.

“It’s for the best,” Damian says, each word a separate trial to pronounce. “We should not tempt fate.”

Tim catches his gaze and holds it a second, searching for something in Damian’s eyes. Damian claws for his self control, clenches his core muscles like he’s trying to keep his balance.

The moment passes. Tim shakes his head. “I’m going to shower.”

As soon as he leaves the room Damian collapses onto the bed. His muscles are jelly inside him. His eyes burn, but he bites the tears back. He can do this. He can be strong. He can be normal again.

#

Damian’s Robin suit was neatly packed into a small suitcase. Two suits hung in the hotel room closet: a three piece suit for Tim and double breasted for Damian’s broader frame. There is a Wayne Enterprises private jet waiting for them at the airport. It’s even stocked with Tim’s coffee.

There’s a letter for Damian propped on one of the seats.

“What’s that?” Tim asks.

Damian plucks it out of the seat and buckles himself in for take off. He runs a thumb under the seal and opens out the paper.

“Father is pleased to hear from me. He is looking forward to seeing both of us and hearing our report on the Turkish venture capitalist.”

“Is that what we’re calling him now?” Tim says drily. “We need to figure out what to tell Bruce.”

“We formed a partnership,” Damian says.

“Well, that,” Tim says. He drops into the seat next to Damian. “How are we going to explain why he let us leave?”

“Do we need to?”

“He arranged for the jet.” Tim chews on his lip. “Do you think he told Bruce?”

“I think if he had, father would have written a very different letter.”

“True.”

The engines roar and the familiar swooping feeling of flight tugs as Damian’s stomach.

Every foot higher the plane climbs, they further they travel from last night.

Tim fidgets next to him. He’s poured himself a cup of coffee, but he’s not drinking it.

“Tim.” “Damian.”

They speak at the same time.

Tim glances back at the bathroom at the back of the plane. Damian follows his eye line. It’s much bigger than a commercial jet’s bathroom.

“It’s less than twenty four hours,” Tim says.

“We’re still in Turkish air space,” Damian says.

As one, they look up at the seatbelt light.

This time, Damian promises himself, he’s going to last. He’s going to bring Tim to orgasm first. Memorise it, so he can keep it forever. He’s not going to let lust overpower him and stumble through this encounter in an orgasmic haze, chasing release. Each moment is precious. Each moment will be perfect.

Last night Damian thought he’d ruined everything almost as soon as he’d got Tim in his arms. The warmth of him, the weight of him, the fact that Tim was hard and Damian had done that. He hadn’t been able to hold back. Between the rescue and imprisonment, it had been over a week since Damian had found the time or privacy to get his hands on himself. He’d been like a shaken bottle of soda. He’d tried so hard to restrain himself, but Tim had felt so good against him, riding his hips, and even impending mortification hadn’t been enough to cool his ardour.

And then Tim had leaned in and told him to just… let go.

Tim had been pleased. Tim had been flattered. He’d praised Damian.

Damian had reduced Tim to babbling praise more than once and he doesn’t know what to make of that. Tim doesn’t give praise lightly, not under normal circumstances, but does sex count as normal?

He wants to undo Tim like that again. He wants Tim to tell him how good he is again, in that broken, straining voice, like it’s the most important thing in the world that Damian hear it, more important than taking his next breath. He wants to hear Tim call him beautiful, even if it’s for the last time.

He really wants that seatbelt light to just go away.

He puts his hand on Tim’s leg and squeezes. Tim’s breath catches in his throat.

“This has to be the last time,” Tim says, voice hitching. “We have to stop before we get back to Gotham.”

“I know.”

Damian runs his fingers up the inside seam of Tim’s pant leg. The fabric is already starting to strain.

“Damian.”

“Timothy.”

Tim’s hips snap up into Damian’s touch, restrained only by the seatbelt.

Damian twists in his seat, pressing his lips to Tim’s neck. He has to be careful not to mark him above the collar now. He can feel Tim’s pulse racing against his tongue.

Tim moans, eyes fluttering shut. Damian squeezes him through his pants.

“The light,” Tim says. “It’s off.”

Damian unbuckles Tim’s seatbelt one handed. Tim leaps to his feet, knocking his forgotten coffee to the floor.

Tim looks down at the spreading mess.

“Oh no,” he says loudly. “I’ve spilt coffee all over myself.” There’s barely a few drops on his leg, and Damian opens his mouth to point this out when Tim continues, in the same strange voice, “Damian, will you help me clean it off? I want to make sure I get it all before the stain sets in.”

Damian rolls his eyes as he unbuckles his belt, and follows Tim into the bathroom.

“There’s no steward,” Damian points out as he locks the door behind them. “Who was that little performance for?”

“We don’t know who the pilot is,” Tim says. “Or if they’re listening.”

Damian reconsiders their conversations up until this point. They haven’t been explicit about what happened, or what’s about the happen, but there weren’t subtle either.

“We should have considered that earlier,” Damian says. He allows himself a smile, and announces at volume, “Your pants are badly stained. You will have to remove them.”

Tim’s jaw drops, and he bursts out laughing. He grabs Damian’s jacket lapel and pulls him close for a bruising kiss.

The bathroom isn’t as roomy as an earthbound one, but this is one of the jets that’s wheelchair accessible, so there’s space for Damian to push Tim down onto the closed toilet seat and drop to his knees between Tim’s legs. Their height difference means Tim only has to lean forward to kiss him rather than bend down.

Tim bites at Damian’s bottom lip and pulls back, a string of saliva connecting them.

“You want to do this again?” he asks.

Damian nods. He wants to remember the weight of Tim’s cock on his tongue, the taste, the smell.

“Baby bat,” Tim breaths against his cheek. “You’re too good to me.” He leans back against the cistern and lifts his hips. Damian unbuttons his fly and eases the tight slacks down Tim’s hips, until there’s space for him to pull Tim’s half-hard cock free, restrained only lightly by Tim’s black silk boxer briefs.

Tim drops back onto the toilet lid with a thump, and Damian presses a kiss to his belly where his shirt has ridden up. His waistcoat is still buttoned up, creased around his waist, and the sight of Tim, so formal and yet so undone is enough to have Damian sliding a hand into his own pants to relieve a little of the pressure. He’s going to do better this time. He’s going to last.

He’s going to have to stop looking at Tim.

He presses his face against the silk of Tim’s underwear. It slides against his cheek, and he’ll never feel silk again without thinking of Tim. Damian can smell Tim’s musk through the delicate fabric. He mouths him through it, enjoying the feel of Tim hardening under his lips. There’s something so vulnerable about him half-hard, something so trusting about letting Damian take him in his mouth. He sucks Tim through the silk, getting his mouth around as much of Tim as he can and letting Tim grow and fill him until Damian’s jaw aches and Tim’s underwear strains to hold him.

Damian pulls off when he can’t hold Tim in his mouth any more.

“Cold,” Tim moans, and rolls his hips up.

Damian strokes him through the wet silk, just to get a sense of what it feels like - judging by Tim’s groan, very good - and peels it off Tim like unwrapping a beautiful gift. Tim’s cock rises like an ivory tower from black sea.

Damian tries to remember Tim’s instructions from the previous night.

He wraps his hand around the base of Tim’s cock and squeezes gently. He feels Tim throb beneath his fingers, the vein along the underside pulsing under his thumb. He rubs his thumb along the length of it, up to the head. He rubs it over Tim’s slit, slicking it with precum, and feels Tim shudder.

“Talk to me,” Damian says.

“Oh Damian, you’re so good,” Tim says. “You’re beautiful. Your mouth is so good.”

Damian squirms happily under the praise, and presses his lips to the tip of Tim’s cock. He savours the taste of Tim’s precum, bitter and salty. Tim smells like the good kind of sweat, like cum, and like the hotel soap, fresh and tart. Damian sucks on Tim’s glans, pushing his foreskin back with his tongue.

Tim’s hands in his hair make Damian jump, and he swallows reflexively around Tim’s cock. Tim’s fingers tighten enough to make Damian’s scalp sting, and his own cock jumps in his pants. Damian gasps, and Tim thrusts up into his open mouth.

“God, Damian. More.”

Damian pulls back enough to say, “Keep pulling my hair,” and sucks Tim down as deep as he can. Tim digs his fingers into Damian’s scalp and starts guiding his head up and down.

Damian tries to focus on the weight Tim’s cock against his tongue and the heat of his legs around Damian’s face, but his dick is heavy against his thigh and he wants desperately to start rubbing himself off. He promised himself he’d be good this time, he’d focus, but he’s leaking into his underwear and he keeps thinking about how he came without touching himself yesterday and he could probably do it again if he tried.

Tim digs the heel of his foot into the floor. Damian’s eyes flick over, trying to figure out whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but Tim grips his skull and fucks up into Damian’s mouth. Damian swallows to keep his gag reflex from triggering and tightens his hand around Tim’s cock, moving it at the pace Tim is setting. He inhales and relaxes into the movement, lets Tim control him.

There’s a sudden pressure against his groin, and he pushes into it, whining in relief. Tim groans at the vibrations around his cock, and keeps rubbing his foot against Damian. It feels so good and Damian can’t keep quiet and Tim keeps pulling his hair and his cock feels just right in Damian’s mouth.

Tim jerks Damian’s head up and away from his cock. Damian’s mouth is suddenly empty and he whimpers, but then Tim is painting his face with cum.

Tim yanks him up and kisses Damian, wet and messy. He licks at Damian’s face, lapping up his own cum, and Damian grinds his dick against Tim’s foot.

“Oh, baby bat,” Tim says. “You’re so good. You’re so patient.”

Damian doesn’t feel patient. He feels ready to explode.

“I want to make you feel this good,” Tim says. “Stand up, baby bat.”

Damian isn’t sure he can right now.

“Up, Damian,” Tim says.

He finds his feet, pushing up unsteadily. Tim spreads his legs and pulls Damian in tight between them until he can cross his ankles behind Damian’s calves. His fingers make short work of Damian’s fly and he pulls Damian’s trousers and underpants down in a single movement.

“I love you, baby bat,” Tim says, pressing his nose to Damian’s pubic hair. “I love how neat you keep yourself. How fucking cute are you?”

“Ma atyaback,” Damian says.

“What does that mean?” Tim asks, nuzzling Damian’s groin. “You keep talking to me in Arabic, and I don’t know what any of it means.”

“How cute are you?” Damian says. “It’s, uh, affectionate.”

“Ma atyaback,” Tim says, and licks his way up Damian’s dick. “Did I say that right?”

Damian groans. “You say whatever you want,” he says. “Just stop teasing me.”

“Mmm, baby bat,” Tim chuckles, and swallows Damian down.

Damian stares down at him. Tim’s hair is neatly pulled back, and Damian can see his pretty lips stretched tight around his dick. It’s amazing to watch. Tim’s eyes are shut and he’s still flushed from his own orgasm.

Damian thrusts, experimentally, and Tim’s hands come up to grip his hips. He holds Damian still as he bobs his head up and down. Damian twitches, and Tim’s fingers tighten. He’s going to leave bruises and Damian wants them, wants a reminder of Tim’s passion, of how much Tim wants him to feel good.

Tim’s hands wrap around Damian’s buttocks, clutch at the muscle, and Damian feels his fingers dip into his cleft.

“Touch me, Tim,” Damian begs. “Please.”

Tim pulls off Damian’s cock. “You have to stay still for me,” he says, using the voice that makes Damian’s dick pulse and his gut twist with heat. “I told you, you’re big, you have to be patient with me. That goes for oral, too. I still have a gag reflex.”

“I will, I promise,” Damian says. “I can stay still. I’ve been trained to stay still. I can stay still for you.”

Tim smiles and kisses Damian’s thigh.

“You’re so good, baby bat,” Tim says. “Ma atyaback.” He slips a finger into his mouth and pulls it out with a wet pop.

Damian is going to have to teach him some more Arabic, but before he can think of anything else Tim’s mouth is back on his dick and his ability to think in words of any language escapes him.

Damian braces his hands against the curving wall behind Tim and concentrates on staying still. Tim’s mouth is hot and wet, and his fingers are slick and firm. Tim circles his hole, teasing him, and Damian can be good, Damian can stay still for him.

There’s a noise coming from his mouth he doesn’t recognise as human. Tim presses a finger into Damian’s hole, easing through the ring of muscle. Damian sobs. His hands are trying to ball into fists and his fingernails are carving half moons into the insulated plastic. He won’t move. He can’t move.

Tim presses deeper, sucks harder, and Damian can’t hold on.

He grabs Tim’s shoulder and pushing him back against the cistern, whipping his cock out of Tim’s surprised mouth. He pushes back on Tim’s finger, riding his hand as his orgasm ripples through him.

He shaking as he comes down, his legs barely holding him up. Tim’s hands are still on his hips, and he guides Damian down until he’s sitting on Tim’s lap. Damian collapses over him, presses his face into Tim’s hair, and tries to pretend the sobs still wracking his body are still due to the effort of obeying Tim.

Tim kisses his neck.

“You okay, Damian?”

Damian takes a shaky breath. He is hoping to calm himself enough to reply, but when it comes clear that’s still some time away, he nods into Tim’s hair instead.

Tim reaches up and rubs the back of Damian’s neck.

“Would it help if I told you I don’t know if I am?”

It does, a little.

Damian leans back and looks at Tim. Tim’s eyes are wet, and Damian hates it, hates that he’s done that to Tim. He kisses Tim with his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to see how much pain he’s caused him.

Tim’s fingers caress his sides, sliding under his shirt and stroking his ribs. Damian’s trousers are still halfway down his thighs and they’re pinching his flesh. His cum decorates the front of Tim’s waistcoat. Damian wants to frame it as a piece of erotic art.

“Damian,” Tim says. “I love you. I thought I should say it when we’re not mid orgasm. I love you.”

Damian stares at him. He doesn’t know what to say. He loves Tim, he loves him wholeheartedly and it’s terrifying and everything is about to end.

“Everything’s about to end,” he says. He feels numb.

“I thought you should know before it did,” Tim says. “It’s okay if you don’t say it back.”

“I can’t,” says Damian, voice breaking with emotion. “Not if you want to go back to normal. It’s… It’s not something I can say and take back.”

Not something he can say in English, anyway. It’s not the saying that would kill him; it’s Tim hearing it.

Tim nods, and Damian knows he understands. Of course he does. Tim loves him.

Damian wraps his arms around Tim’s shoulders and holds him tight.

They’re going home.


	9. In which our heroes can go home, but can never go back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realise Nyssa is currently dead in canon, and since her role here is pretty throwaway, I've left her in. Just assume she's come back to life at some point in the five years between canon and now. There's definitely been a crisis between canon and now in this timeline ;)

When they arrive in Gotham Tim leaves the plane first. Damian watches him walk away through the airport, to get his own taxi to his own apartment. He tries to be numb.

Damian waits until Tim is out of sight before moving through security himself. Father is waiting for him on the other side.

Damian tries to be numb.

A voice that sounds like Tim says “There is no try” in the back of his mind, and everything hurts so much he thinks he’s going to collapse.

He tries to be numb.

There is no try.

He _is_ numb.

Father frowns.

“Where is Tim?”

Damian is _numb_.

“Damian?”

“He has already departed,” Damian says. His voice is steady. “He wanted to go straight home.”

Bruce sighs. “He’s still angry about the adoption paperwork, isn’t he? He has every right to be. I should have dealt with that by now.” He puts a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “How is he?”

“He is well, father,” Damian says. “We are both well.”

Bruce’s lips thin. “It was reckless, going after him alone.” He leads the way to the car, where Pennyworth waits. Bruce gets in the front, and Damian squeezes his long legs into the back. “You put both your lives at risk when you failed to inform anyone of your destination. Black Bat wasted time and resources looking for you in Nepal. Nightwing and Red Hood were also put on alert.”

“I will thank all of them,” Damian says. “I apologise for my oversight.”

“We’re glad you both made it back hale and hearty,” Pennyworth says.

“We are,” Bruce says. “Of course we are, and I wish Tim was here to hear it as well. I _worry_ , Damian. Even when it’s someone like Ra’s, whose motivations generally involve keeping you alive, not knowing where you are is… frightening. Not knowing where to go to find you, if I could get to you in time.”

Damian looked up the case file on Jason Todd’s death, once. It was compiled by Barbara, mostly for Dick’s sake. It included an image of Todd’s body.

If Damian wasn’t numb, he might feel guilty. But he has numbed himself, so he sits in blank silence.

His father falls silent as well. He has admitted his weakness and now he needs time to numb himself again.

Damian is his father’s son.

#

His apartment isn’t quite as he left it. The cleaners have been in.

Damian’s cleaners.

Tim sits down abruptly in the middle of the floor. The clean floor.

It doesn’t seem right that it’s clean. His mind is a mess.

Damian made his mind a mess, but his space tidy.

His waistcoat was a mess - Damian made a mess of it - but he’d shoved it into the suitcase with Damian’s Robin costume as they were landing so no one would see it. He hopes Damian remembers it’s there before he unpacks the suit to patrol tonight.

He shrugs off his jacket and starts unbuttoning his shirt. He doesn’t want to wear Ra’s clothes a moment longer. He wants to _burn_ them.

He stands up, kicks off his trousers, removes his underpants. He leaves the clothes in the middle of the floor, relieved to have something there destroying the dust-free perfection of the floorboards. He takes a shower and leaves his towel on the bathroom floor. He roots through his wardrobe for his oldest, rattiest sweatpants, coffee and bloodstained, dumping out clean clothes across the carpet.

He finds an old jar of instant coffee in the back of cupboard. He doesn’t deserve good coffee today. He spills granules all over the side, and only drinks half a mug of the sour, bitter tar. He puts it on the coffee table without a coaster.

He stares at it for a moment.

He kicks it over with his foot.

He feels better for half a second, but then he just feels foolish. Damian put a lot of effort into looking after Tim, and he’s cutting off his nose to spite his face.

He mops up the spilt coffee, puts the dirty suit and wet towels in the hamper, refolds his clean clothes, wipes down the kitchen surfaces, and makes himself a pot of the good coffee.

Liquids under pressure don’t boil as they should, and emotions are the opposite. The strange atmosphere of the last week still lingers. Sleep deprivation, drugged food, a cell under a city that’s essentially buried alive. Colours were brighter by lamplight, sounds louder trapped in the small room, smells lingered, tastes lit up the tongue, and every single touch is written on his skin in scratches and bruises and bitemarks.

It should be easy now to put it aside, seal it all up in a bubble and say “that was a thing that happened because-” but the real world still doesn’t feel real. The memories glow, the intensity of emotion bleeding through them. Every moment was fraught, every choice was made under pressure. He’s not a man who says “I love you” easily, but it had tripped off his tongue multiple times and he’s not sure he can bring himself to regret it even now.

He will, he’s sure. He’s never said it to someone who didn’t make him regret it. Usually by dying.

He’s glad he said it, though. They were big words in a small place.

He’s sort of glad Damian didn’t say it back. He’s not sure he’d have known what to do with it. “I love you” is a statement, but “I love you too” is a commitment.

 _More or less so than getting married?_ he wonders idly.

It ought to be a stupid question, but his parents were married and he can’t remember hearing the L word once in their household.

There are two paths open to him, as far as Tim can tell.

First, they can pretend nothing happened. They can try and return to normal, the friendship that had budded between them, the camaraderie of being The Gay Robins. What happened in Turkey stays in Turkey, buried under the mountains and trapped amongst the clouds.

Second, they can be honest. They can be together. He can let Damian look after him, he can look after Damian, they can be controlling and codependent and all the other bad things Robins in relationships apparently can’t help, and they can see if it works or if it implodes dramatically or if his love leads to yet another death.

The problem they have to overcome to walk the first path is Ra’s. He wants them married legally and publicly. All his promises mean nothing if they don’t, and all his threats will bring Gotham around their ears. To make things the way they used to be, they have to find a way to convince Ra’s that things have changed.

The problem with the second path is, well. Everyone who isn’t Ra’s. The family. The press. Society. People will never forget that they’re brothers. They’ll never forgive them. The second path cuts them off from everyone apart from Ra’s. It forever aligns them with the League of Assassins.

There has to be a third path, Tim thinks. He’s the genius. He’s the detective. If there’s a third way, he can find it. A way to be together without anyone caring. A way to be apart without the world ending. A way to be in love without it hurting.

He sips his coffee and looks around his clean apartment.

If there’s a third path, he and Damian will find it.

#

Damian is getting changed for dinner when he catches sight of himself in the mirror. It's like watching one of those old 3D movies Grayson inflicts on him sometimes, with the heterochromium cardboard glasses. Through one eye he's the same as ever, high school senior, Robin, Damian Wayne. Through the other he's Damian Al Ghul Drake, married man. Left, right. Red, green. Wayne, Drake.

Two lives taking place at the same time, inhabiting the same body. It's like he's been caught in some Flash nonsense and had two sets of memories of the same period, except it hasn't happened yet. One life where he goes to school, talks about college applications, wonders who to ask to a prom he doesn’t even want to attend but knows everyone will fuss about if he doesn’t. One where he’s Batman’s sidekick 

Another where he worries if his husband will remember to eat dinner today, or if he’ll just drink coffee instead and stay up all night. A life where he made the most solemn vow he ever imagined making, as serious as becoming Robin and committing to his father's path over everything he was brought up for. He's bound himself to someone else now, to something else. What if it conflicts? Which vow will he honour?

Who is he, now?

His fingers tremble on his tie. It's not necessary for dinner with the family, not the kind of dinner his father will almost certainly walk out of part way through, but they agreed to put their vows aside when they got back to Gotham. Even if Damian can't do that, he can pretend. He has to pack that second life away, just like he's learned to put Robin away when he's trying to interact with civilians. He has two secret identities now. This one is best served with western clothes, and the tie is a good symbol of that. The suit his grandfather supplied is in the cave, waiting to be analysed. Tim’s waistcoat is still in Damian’s suitcase, waiting to be worshipped.

His memory supplies Tim's fingers at his neck, weaving the silk around and over itself, smoothing it down. The memory is visceral. He can almost smell Tim in the room.

Tim has changed him. He’s changed himself. He feels like it should be visible somehow, a scarlet letter branded upon him. This is Damian, a different man to last week, forever changed by the new knowledge of his own body. He knows how deep he can take a cock into his mouth. He knows how good fingering himself feels. He knows how to take instruction. He is a good husband, in one thing at least.

He drops the tie on the floor. If Tim isn’t here to tie it for him, he doesn’t want to wear it.

Dinner is just the three of them, Damian and Bruce and Pennyworth. It’s leek and potato soup, followed by nut loaf and steamed spring greens. It’s a little bland, which suits Damian just fine. His father is making notes about an open case, and when Pennyworth tuts at him to put it away, he turns his attention to Damian.

Tim and Damian agreed a story to tell the family on the plane. That Ra’s admitted how he’d been manipulating Gotham to keep them too exhausted to see his scheme. That he’d disinherited Tim in the hope of persuading Tim to be his heir. That he’d tried to persuade Tim to marry Nyssa, and they’d explained why that wouldn’t get Ra’s what he wanted. Saved his life from Nyssa, who was furious at the idea of being married off to Tim, and used that act as leverage to persuade Ra’s to let them go.

It isn’t a great story. There are holes you could drive the Batmobile through. Damian isn’t nearly as good at lying to Bruce as Tim is, so he leans heavily on the true elements, and hopes Bruce gets distracted by his current case again and remains too busy to interrogate him properly.

It helps that since the awkwardness of The Talk Bruce has been much more careful in how he interacts with his blood son. It’s easy to derail a conversation by bringing sexuality into it, which is why they decided to include the wedding in their story. Bruce gets distracted by the idea of Tim coming out to Ra’s and doesn’t challenge Damian on Ra’s inexplicable largess.

After dinner Damian goes back to his room to fetch his Robin costume. Father wants him to patrol at his side. He’s trying, Damian tells himself. He thinks this is what Damian would want.

Last week Damian would have been thrilled, but his father’s side doesn’t hold the appeal it once did.

He’s beginning to understand why father talked so much about feeling like an adult, when he assumed Damian had lost his virginity to Jon. He doesn’t entirely feel like an adult, but he doesn’t feel like a child anymore.

He wants to tell him, suddenly. He wants to tell his father everything, including how his heart is breaking. He wants his father to hold him, and tell him it will be okay, and that he still loves his son. Both his sons.

He wants his father’s permission to love Tim, love him in a way Batman can’t bring himself to love anyone. His father should have been there to give him his blessing.

Damian stares down at his Robin suit. He remembers Tim in his tights and a night shirt. He remembers using the R in a makeshift grapple. Grandfather has reassembled all the elements, but it doesn’t feel right to Damian. It's all little pieces of Tim put together wrong.

He leaves the suit in his room and goes down to the cave to pick out one of his spares. He tries to put Damian aside as he pulls it on. There, with his shirt, goes Damian Wayne. There, his trousers, Damian Al Ghul. There, his underwear, Damian Drake. Here with his cup and his tights and his armour and his tunic and his cape and his belt, is Robin.

The numbness recedes, replaced with something calmer and more centred. It feels almost normal, and for a moment panic rises in him. He’s not ready for normal yet. But it’s okay, because it’s Damian who isn’t ready, and this is Robin. Nothing abnormal has happened to Robin.

He puts his mask on. There’s a mirror in the cave locker room, and he checks his uniform in it. There’s no more double vision, no old and new Damian. There is only Robin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realise while I was writing this, but the fic falls into a pretty neat three act structure, which makes this the end of Act One.
> 
> First Act: A dynamic, on-screen incident occurs (Ra's announces the marriage). The protagonists attempt to deal with this incident lead to a second and more dramatic situation (the wedding). Life will never be the same again for the protagonists and a dramatic question (how will they make it work) is raised that will be answered in the climax of the narrative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure
> 
> There's a little interlude after this that I'll probably put up during the weekend, since it's not a whole chapter.


	10. Interlude: Bruce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, one of the things that really bugs me is when you have a story with a pretty tight focus, one or two PoVs the whole way through, and suddenly a new one is thrown in really late on. It just gives the impression the author couldn't think of any other way to convey that information (or didn't trust her readers to understand it if conveyed differently). I sketched out the plot for this, and realised I was going to end up doing exactly that with Bruce's PoV, so I went back and added some scenes from his PoV, but they didn't always mesh with the existing chapters - I'd finish something with a really satisfying line, and then have an awkward "and here's what Batman thinks" coda. So.... interludes! Totally not cheating way to add these bits. The important thing from you guys' perspective, is it means there's going to be some little bonus chapters every now and then.

Batman watches from a rooftop as Robin works his way through Two Face’s men. The alley is narrow, so they can only come at him two at a time, which suits his protege perfectly. Currently, there are eight unconscious or immobilised henchmen behind him, and six still preparing to attack ahead.

Robin clearly has some frustration he needs to work out after spending time with his grandfather, and Batman won’t intervene unless he has to.

There’s a thud behind him on the roof. Footsteps, heavy and deliberate. Red Hood.

“You’re back from Paris already?”

“I came as soon as you said they were safe. I have my own shit to be dealing with here.”

“Did you find Talia?”

“Yes.” Hood takes his helmet off and puts it on the roof beside him. “She knew more than she was willing to tell me. Took off. I was going to follow her, but...” He shrugs. The reason he didn’t need to follow through is currently dispatching his ninth goon with terrifying efficiency. Damian always moves differently after a stint with the assassins, like his old training is reasserting itself. It’s a kind of code switching.

“Robin gave me an explanation, but not the whole explanation,” Batman says.

“You gonna ferret it out of him?”

He’s just grateful to have him back, safe and sound and in one piece. He’s not going to risk that by pushing too hard. Tim is avoiding him, which he knows he deserves, but he’s not going to risk driving Damian away as well.

“The thing that gets me,” Hood says, “the thing that’s really sticking in my craw, B, is that you stayed here. You didn’t go.”

“There was an Arkham breakout.”

Hood snatches his helmet back up off the floor and turns on his heel, but Batman steps back and puts a hand on his chest.

“I needed to make sure they were all rounded up. That I knew where they were, and that none of them… That the Joker was still _here_ , at least.”

Even through the domino, Hood’s eyes are hard.

“Bullshit.”

Batman - Bruce - wants to tell him, wants to tell him everything, but after everything Jason’s been through he doesn’t deserve to shoulder the burden of Bruce’s guilt too. He wants to tell him how paralysed he was when he realised Tim and Damian were gone. His terror of being too late again overwhelming everything else, until the only solution was to not go at all. He can’t hold another still-warm body in his arms. He can’t watch blood coagulate in open wounds. He can’t live through that moment when son becomes body becomes corpse.

“Ra’s picked his time carefully,” Bruce says. “It’s the tenth anniversary of- it’s your tenth anniversary.”

Jason flinches back. He’s happy to throw his death in anyone’s face when he has control of the conversation, but he doesn’t like hearing Bruce talk about it. It cements Bruce’s decision to hold himself back.

“You think _I_ don’t know that?” he hisses. “You think that’s not why I dropped everything for you? For _them_? And you couldn’t even leave fucking Gotham.”

It’s different, now, to ten years ago. Bruce isn’t alone. When he is too weak to fight he has soldiers who pick up the banner for him. When Jason died Barbara was still learning her new limits and Dick was off world. Bruce has them all now, and even when they resent his asking, when they don’t understand his reasons, they’ll help him, Jason was willing to help even if he’s furious at being asked, and Bruce can live with his fury if it means no one else has to die.

“Thank you,” Bruce says.

“I don’t want your fucking thanks,” Jason snarls. “I just want no one else to go through what I did. You didn’t come, Bruce. I lay there, _hoping_ , and you never came. And you have the nerve to tell me it’s my fault you weren’t going to come for them, either? Because of some shitty date in a shitty calendar, like Ra’s Al fucking Ghul just knows you so damn well he arranged his whole kidnapping around the fact you’re a shitty father who likes to punish his kids for acting out by letting them reap what you think they’ve sown?”

There’s a gargle from the alley below, and the city falls silent. Damian is ready to move on to the warehouse where Two Face is hiding out.

Bruce doesn’t want to do this tonight, not with Harvey. He can still picture his old chum's face, lifetime ago, lit with passion and righteous anger. They were going to change the world. Now they’re both old men, tired of fighting each other and themselves and everyone else. And Bruce is going to let his teenaged son go in there and face him. 

Somewhere out there there’s an alternate universe where Damian is throwing a ball at Harvey, not a Batarang, and they’re all at a lake house or a garden party or even just the park together, both of their families. Jason’s probably got a book with him, and Tim is complaining about the poor signal and lack of wifi. Dick’s flirting with a local girl and Cass is teasing him about it. Harvey would have kids too, Duela at least, a spoilt society princess trying to escape her mother Gilda’s all seeing eye so she can hit on Jason.

Bruce is tired.

Jason is still staring at him.

Damian is still waiting for him.

“They’re safe,” Bruce says.

“No thanks to you.”

“I know.”

Jason deflates, just a little.

Bruce withdraws his hand from Jason’s chest. Jason’s eyes follow the movement.

“Are you coming to dinner on Sunday?”

“Not this week,” Jason says. “Too much catching up to do. Maybe in a couple of weeks.” He jerks his head at the alley. “Go on, before he goes in without you.”

Bruce - Batman - nods.

The Dark Knight steps around the Red Hood and leaps down into the alley, cape flaring around him.

Gotham doesn’t get tired.


	11. In which Tim sleeps, perchance to dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I jinxed myself; I had the worst night's sleep last night, and a lot of little weird dreams.

_They’re in the batcave, but the batcave is in Ra’s cave city. It makes perfect sense in the way only dreams can. There’s a lazarus pit next to the dinosaur and the walls are the warm orange of cappadocian rock and the bats are dozing overhead._

_Damian is sat in front of the bat computer, completely naked._

_“You’re here,” Damian says. “I need your input on this case.”_

_He lets Damian pull him into his lap so they can look at the screens together._

_“Every wedding in the city has been cancelled,” Damian says. “All the of venues and caterers and photographers are quitting to start new jobs.”_

_“That’s a shame,” Tim says. “At least we’re already married.”_

_Damian scowls at him. “Of course we’re not. We’re normal again.”_

_That’s why they’re both naked, Tim realises. Normal people don’t wear costumes._

_Damian slides his hand into Tim’s lap and starts jerking his hard cock._

Tim wakes up in his own bed, coming in his pyjama pants.

#

_They’re getting married in the cave city, but all their family are there this time. They’re in ivory versions of their uniforms. Ra’s is wearing a dog collar and leads the assassins and superheroes in a Latin mass. Damian is poking him in the side with the double ended knife._

Steph is poking him in the side with a batarang. He’s fallen asleep against a chimney, and nearly gave their position away by chanting doggerel Latin in his sleep.

#

 

 _It’s that new SunDollar advert, except everyone is in wedding dresses, and Tim and Damian are the baristas. Tim spills coffee over a customer, who turns out to be Nyssa Al Ghul. She insists that he’s really her husband, not Damian’s. Then everyone is talking backwards_ , and Tim wakes with a start to see the closing credits of Twin Peaks, and realises he fell asleep on the sofa again.

#

_Tim is in the cave city, and he really has to pee, but every toilet he finds is guarded by assassins. Damian is no help at all._

Tim wakes with a full bladder and a lingering frustration with dream Damian that lasts until his first coffee of the day.

#

_They’re in Tim’s bedroom at the mansion, though it’s still decorated like it was when he was in his teens. He’s face down in a nest of pillows, lying naked without so much as a sheet over him. It’s the most luxurious kind of vulnerability. He’s not alone in the mansion: he can hear Jason and Dick yelling at each other nearby and Titus barking in the distance. He can’t hear Batman, but he knows he’s prowling the building, looking for criminals to fight. Tim has to stay in bed, or Batman will find him and arrest him for being naked._

_“Ya amar.”_

_Damian is behind him._

_“I have to stay here,” Tim says. “Batman is looking for me.”_

_“I’ll cover you with my body,” Damian says. “He won’t find you.”_

_Tim gathers the pillows to him and buries his face in them. They smell like Damian._

_Damian’s weight presses down on him slowly, pinning him to the mattress. His chest is against Tim’s back, his arms bracketing Tim in, and his legs fall to either side of Tim’s. Damian nuzzles Tim’s neck._

_Tim’s cock starts to harden against the bed. He turns his head to capture Damian’s lips with his. The kiss is soft and sweet. Damian’s hand comes up to cup the back of Tim’s head, fingers tangling in Tim’s hair. Tim’s scalp tingles._

_“I will keep you safe,” Damian whispers in his ear, “if you keep me under control.”_

_“You don’t need controlling,” Tim says. “You need to be unleashed.”_

_Damian’s cock is hard against Tim’s thigh. Tim grinds up against him._

_“You’re so beautiful when you let yourself go,” Tim says. “I want you to come on me.”_

_Damian growls in his ear. “I’m going to mark you. When Batman finds you he’ll know you’re mine.”_

_“Bite me,” Tim invites._

_Damian pushes himself up on his elbows and sucks a hickey onto the back of Tim’s neck, lips tight around the top vertebrae. He starts working his way down Tim’s back, bruising each extrusion. Tim writhes beneath him, Damian’s weight still pinning his hips to the bed so he can’t thrust down as hard as he’d like._

_Damian’s cock slides against Tim’s sweat slick cleft, and Tim wonders if Damian could just slip it in. It feels plausible, though Tim knows Damian is too big for him to take without preparation._

_Damian’s cock moves away as his mouth finally reaches the base of Tim’s spine and lavishes it’s attention on his coccyx. Tim has the freedom to move now, and his slides his hand under his hip to grab his cock. Damian reaches beneath him and pulls Tim’s hand away._

_“I’m taking care of you,” Damian says, voice very serious._

_Tim nods into the pillows. Damian nudges Tim’s legs apart with his own, and Tim lifts his hips so Damian can wrap his long fingers around Tim’s dick._

_Damian’s cock slides into his ass like Tim has been waiting for it. He feels so full, and the burn he associates with bottoming is a barely there ache. It’s perfect._

_“You’re perfect,” Tim mumbles into the pillow._

_Damian fucks him, slow and gentle. Tim is buried beneath him, enveloped by his heat inside and out. Damian’s hand moves in time with his cock, each thrust driving Tim into his ready fist. He’s biting down on Tim’s neck to keep himself quiet, and Tim wants to tell him to stop worrying, to be loud, but there’s a reason they have to be silent even if Tim can’t remember it right now._

_Tim bites into the pillows. He tries to hold on, he wants Damian to come first, but he’s so warm and comfortable and safe under Damian and he knows Damian wants him to come. He wants to make Damian happy._

_He comes into Damian’s fist, and Damian makes an approving noise in his ear. Tim is blissfully happy._

Tim wakes face down on the sofa, covered by multiple blankets. Bart and Kon have left, thank god, but apparently they thought Tim would sleep best smothered and crushed by every piece of fabric he owns. Knowing the two of them, Bart probably couldn't pick a single blanket, and Kon thought it was funny to egg him on.

His jeans are wet and sticky, but he only shakes off about half the layers and curls up under the rest. Maybe if he’s lucky he’ll dream of Damian again tonight.

#

_Tim is coding an app that enables him to teleport to Damian’s side whenever he wants, but there’s a bug that means no one else can see him when he’s there. He’s extolling the virtues of the app to Bruce, and how it means he can support Damian with undercover work and spy on people much more easily, but Bruce can’t read the code and he keeps insisting it’s impossible because Tim and Damian are brothers. Tim keeps pointing out the place in the code where they’re not brothers, but Bruce just debugs it, and they are again, and the app orders Tim a cleaning service, like it was always supposed to._

Tim wakes up and peels his face from his keyboard. Damian wouldn’t approve of him working himself to exhaustion like this.

Sometimes, when he’s really tired, he doesn’t dream as much. He has to accept this isn’t one of those times, though.

He’s always dreamt a lot. It’s a symptom of depression (and anxiety, and several other mental illnesses). He wonders what it’s like to just sleep without a string of semi-coherent images grabbing your attention and wearing you out before you even wake up. It must happen to some people. The worse he’s feeling, the more involved the dreams get, and sometimes he gets trapped in lengthy narratives that drag him back down even after he’s woken up. Usually they’re the ones where someone is dead.

When he was little, Mrs Mac would help him call his parents after particularly bad dreams, so he could prove to himself they were alright. He remembers how reassuring his mother’s irritation was.

After his mother died he stopped. The idea he might dream someone’s death and they’d actually be dead is too much. Even though it’s never happened like that, even though it’s worse, by far, to dream someone is alive and then wake up and know they’re not.

Tim’s fingers fly across the keyboard without conscious thought, pulling up the feed from the batcave.

There’s Damian, alive and well, training with Bruce on the mats.

Tim checks the date and time stamps, just to reassure himself this is live.

He should close the window now he’s reassured himself, he knows he should. Damian is fine. Damian is committed to going back to life as normal, and Tim owes it to him to do the same.

Damian backflips away from Bruce, and Tim admires the smooth lines of his body. He is grace personified.

Well, he is until Tim gets his hands on him, then he’s needy and shaky and greedy and-

 _Normal_ , Tim reminds himself sternly. Normal like Damian, sparring with Batman. He’s pushing himself hard, and Bruce is under pressure to defend himself against Damian’s nimble blows. Tim hasn’t trained with Damian in a long time, and it’s fascinating to analyse the way he moves.

For all his height, Damian still fights like he lacks the advantage, never trying to physically overpower his opponent. He doesn’t fight like Jason, who looks to overpower enemies first, and keeps his martial arts training in reserve as a shock tactic.

He uses nerve strikes and attacks chinks in armour. He dances around his opponent, fast and light on his feet. He doesn’t fight like Cass, though, whose small stature means she needs to get up close with enemies, but without losing sight of the whole battlefield.

He has the stamina of youth that means he can outlast any enemy, even burning twice as much energy as he spins around them. But he doesn’t fight like Dick, who wastes energy in showy moves, goading his opponents into thinking they can wear him out while saving the hardest blows for last.

Damian’s every movement is efficient, carefully calculated so that each blow lands. He doesn’t waste a single jab or punch. He doesn’t fight like Tim himself, who avoids hand to hand as long as he can help it, giving his enemies a false sense of security until they finally corner him.

There’s emotion in the way he moves, a little anger, a little joy. It doesn’t sing from him like it does with Steph, who knows herself so well these days she can use that fierce glut of emotion to misdirect her opponents.

Damian has learned a great deal from a lot of different masters, and his fighting style is so different that to Tim’s eye it looks like Batman is learning _from_ him.

Bruce ducks, and weaves, and Tim sees it then. Bruce _is_ learning from Damian. When Damian goes low, sweeping his legs under Batman, Bruce responds by lunging towards him, which unbalances Damian. Damian is using his assassin’s training, and Bruce is fighting like Matches in a bar. The styles don’t work together, and Damian takes a split second too long to read the change. Bruce pins him.

Tim gives in to temptation and turns up the volume on the feed.

Damian squirms free and throws up his arms in a defensive stance, ready to go another round. Bruce slaps the mat three times.

“Enough, Damian,” he says. “We’ll be to worn out for patrol.”

“I won’t,” Damian snarls. He beckons, a challenge. “Again, father.”

“No.”

“Again until I beat you.”

“One out of three is enough for tonight. And don’t think about summoning one of your siblings here again. Dick wrenched his shoulder on patrol after last week.”

“I’m not done, father.”

“I’m forfeiting,” Bruce says, and Tim can hear real tiredness in his voice this time. Damian must do too, because he finally relaxes his stance. “Shower,” Bruce says, “take some time to eat, and meet me back down here in a hour.”

“Ten minutes,” Damian says.

“We’re not leaving for an hour,” Bruce says. “You can spend fifty minutes counting the bats, if you really want, but it won’t change my mind.”

Damian scowls. He stalks away to the showers.

Tim congratulates himself on not loading the locker room feed, even if the mental image of Damian in the shower makes his cock twitch in his sweats.

He’s preoccupied, and doesn’t notice Bruce logging into the bat computer until he realises Bruce is staring directly into the feed.

The webcam LED lights up and Tim unpeels the masking tape he usually keeps the pinhole camera covered with.

“Hi,” he says.

“Red Robin. Did you need something?”

“No, just…” Tim isn’t sure what to say. “I fell asleep at my laptop,” he admits, “and had a dream about you and Damian. I just wanted to check in.”

Bruce looks a little nonplussed at this honesty from Tim. “What sort of dream?” he asks.

“Nothing significant. Coding.” Tim’s fingers twitch over the keys, He should get back to work. Or go to bed. “I was working on an app for college before I dozed off, so just that. I shouldn't have spied on you.”

Bruce still looks concerned. It’s a fatherly kind of worry. “How much sleep are you getting?” he asks.

“More than usual, not as much as I should,” Tim says. “Don’t tell Damian.” Realising that probably sounds like a non-sequitur to Bruce, he adds, “He nearly had you on the mat, didn’t he? That was very close.”

“He’s beaten me several times recently,” Bruce says, pride evident in his voice. “He’s been working even harder since he turned eighteen. I think he feels the weight of his adult responsibilities now.”

Tim wonders if that’s what Bruce really thinks. If he were Bruce, he’d wonder if Damian was trying to prove something after his father missed his birthday, to win his approval or demonstrate his competency or just trying to get his attention. He can probably tell that Damian has a secret, but Tim doesn’t entirely buy Bruce being so off base with it.

“I don’t think he’ll be Robin much longer,” Bruce confides. “He reminds me of Dick at this age. He’s testing boundaries, pushing himself, exploring his identity.”

Jason, Tim and Steph never had the luxury of letting go of Robin in their own time. Nor did Dick, really, though Bruce appears to have forgotten the period when Dick was Nightwing in Gotham and Robin with the Titans.

“So we should start looking out for another orphan for you, then?” Tim asks. “I think you should have another girl this time, balance the books a bit more. Maybe a red head for a bit of variety.”

Bruce looks startled, and laughs. “You still think Batman needs a Robin, even with a whole flock of them now?”

“Batman always needs a Robin,” Tim says. “Maybe you should try it out for a while. Let Damian wear the pointy ears.”

“I hope that day is still some time off,” Bruce says. “It was hard enough seeing Dick in the suit. I hope Damian can develop his own, unique identity first.”

“He sure is unique,” Tim says, and though it’s meant to be ironic it comes out much fonder than he intended. He’s losing control chatting so casually with Bruce; his walls are coming down. “I should get back to work.”

“You should get some sleep,” Bruce says. “Don’t work yourself to exhaustion over college.”

The subtext is that it’s fine to do it for the mission, which Tim doesn’t agree with quite as much as he used to.

“Don’t let Damian work you to exhaustion, either,” he says. “Have a good evening.”

“Sleep well.”

Bruce cuts the feed off from his end, a passive aggressive reminder than Tim’s hacking is tolerated, not encouraged.

In response Tim spends another two hours coding before he finally admits defeat and hits the hay.

#

_They’re in Gotham Art Gallery, both dressed for a gala. A new portrait is being unveiled. Tim already knows it’s a picture of him and Damian, and he isn’t bothered about being around to see the curtain drop, not when Damian is right here with him. It’s a painting of their wedding day, but Tim doesn’t know if it’s the League wedding or the American one. Damian knows, but he won’t tell him. If it’s the League wedding Batman is going to be angry they didn’t invite him, but if it’s the other one Ra’s will be angry. Tim turns to ask Damian for his opinion, but Damian isn’t there any more._

_Tim spins on the spot. The gallery is full of assassins and super heroes. Vicki Vale is interviewing the White Ghost. Selina Kyle is hanging out with Lady Shiva._

_Tim thinks sees Damian and sets off in pursuit. He has to find Damian before they unveil the painting. Damian has to see the painting._

_He turns down corridor after corridor, chasing the phantom of his husband through the galleries. All of the paintings are pictures of the Arkham Rogues. After a while Tim has the bright idea to start checking them for clues. He’s a detective. Detectives find clues. But Damian hasn’t left him any clues and they’re going to unveil the painting soon._

_The floor flips to a black and white zigzag pattern and the walls are red, and Tim finally figures it out. There are no clues in the paintings because the paintings are the clue. He has to get back to the portrait._

_He runs over the zigzags, until they turn into a moving walkway, like at an airport. They’re trying to carry him away from the portrait and from Damian. He fires his grapple and swings over the floor instead, bouncing off the walls and putting his feet through priceless paintings and ming vases. It’s okay, though, because he’s back at the hall now._

_They’ve already unveiled the painting and everyone has left. It’s late. He’s been locked in. The only exit is a hatch in the ceiling._

_The curtain is still slumped underneath the painting. It’s the photo Tim gave Damian for his birthday, and he’s touched Damian liked it so much he made it life size. It’s Batman on top of the Wayne Enterprise building at dawn, but when Tim looks closely he can see it’s not Bruce, but Damian._

_He taps the glass. Damian turns to look at him._

_“We’re supposed to be acting normal,” Damian says in what Tim knows is Arabic, even though he doesn’t speak Arabic. Damian shakes his head in disgust and jumps off the roof of the building._

_Tim tries to get into the painting to follow him, but the glass is in his way. He tries to fire his grapple at it, but it doesn’t work. The zigzag floor is starting to pull him away from the painting and he keeps running to stay close, but his limbs are getting heavier and his movements slower and he suddenly gets the feeling that the gallery isn’t empty any more but he doesn’t dare look around and see who’s with him._

_His arms and legs are lead and the air is treacle and there’s something right behind him, something that laughs, and Damian isn’t coming to save him because they’re normal now._

#

Tim fucking hates his subconscious.


	12. In which the path forks ahead of you

Damian debates skipping school. Playing hooky. He’s done it before, but always in the name of the mission. Today, he just really, really doesn’t want to go.

But his father proposes giving Damian a lift to school on his way to Wayne Enterprises, and Alfred gives Damian a hard look when he thinks about protesting. Damian feeds Pennyworth, Titus, Bandit, BatCow, Jerry and Goliath. He tries sticking his hand in Goliath’s mouth, but the hell beast only gives him an affectionate slobber. He should have tried his luck with Bandit instead.

He finds himself in his father’s car. School is inevitable.

“So, do you have a date for prom yet?” Bruce asks.

Damian frowns at him. “I do not see the point in attending,” he says. “I’ve experienced enough foolish rituals recently.”

“It’s a rite of passage.”

Damian stays silent.

“Think of it as another sort of gala.”

“I don’t see the point in attending those, either.”

“We’ve had this conversation before, Damian. It’s important to your role as a Wayne. It’s only going to get more important as you get older, and people are watching you to see what causes you support and who you choose to spend your time with.” Bruce sighs. “That’s beside the point, though, when it comes to prom. You’ve only got a certain amount of time left to spend with your school chums. It’s a chance to cut loose together.”

“I don’t have ‘chums’ there.”

“People you spend time with,” Bruce redefines the word drily. 

Damian bites down on a small smile. “Most of them graduated last year,” he says. “Maps is still there, but she already has a date for prom.”

“You were thinking of asking her? Not a boy?” Bruce drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

“There aren’t any boys at school worth asking.”

“What about outside of school?” For a moment Damian thinks his father is suggesting he ask Jon to prom, and he panics, but Bruce continues, “Like Colin?”

“The Booths placed Colin at the Academy last year,” Damian reminds him. His father had arranged the foster placement through the Wayne Foundation when it became clear Colin was falling behind at school due to inadequate support at the orphanage. Colin had been resistant at first - he hadn’t had a great experience with foster parents previously - but Damian had vouched for the couple his father chose, and so far everything is working out. “He’s going with Maps.”

“They’re dating?”

“They’re…” Damian frowns. “I’m unclear.” 

He’s let his civilian friendships fall fallow. Ra’s masterplan had been keeping him busy as Robin, and his growing relationship with Tim had taken up a lot of his non-mission time. Now he’s avoiding Tim, he ought to have more time for his other allies. He ought to make time. He could use the distraction.

There’s a bus waiting outside of school.

“Trip today?”

“Tour of Gotham U,” Damian says, “a waste of my time.”

“I imagine you’ve seen quite a lot of it with Tim,” Bruce says. “Still, it’s nice to have a day out of class. Maybe you’ll get some ideas in what you want to major in. Have you let Tim know you’ll be around? He might be free for a coffee.”

Damian shakes his head. He’s not sure what father thinks his relationship is like with Tim these days. What it _was_ like, a few weeks ago.

“I don’t think the tour allows it,” Damian says, desperately hoping it’s true.

“Well, have a good day, son.”

“Thank you, father.”

#

The tour is boring, which is the best possible thing Damian can say about it. They get handed schedules assigning them to random 101 classes, and Damian has to sit through a 45 minute lecture on Empress Josephine. Then there are “guided discussions” about the 101 classes and how they differ from high school lessons, then a tour of the dorms. They’re given prepaid cards to buy lunch, to simulate the experience of, well, buying lunch.

The day is more than halfway over, and so far Damian has seen neither hide nor hair of Tim. There’s no reason for the high school students to interact with college seniors, who are deep into exam season, and Tim doesn’t live on campus. This might be okay.

Damian is in a good enough mood by midafternoon he’s even willing to acknowledge that the library is pleasant. Colin thinks it’s too well lit and open plan. Nowhere to lurk.

“I don’t know why we’re here, really,” he says. “How many Gotham Academy students even come to Gotham U? It’s not Ivy League.” Colin eyes their fellow students with some distaste.

“Harvard still has libraries, and dorms, and lunch,” Damian says. “Even our peers should be capable of grasping that choosing an institute for your tertiary education should be founded on what is best for the individual, not which name holds the most value to a certain sort of person.”

“What do you even care?” Colin asks. “You’ve got a job for life already lined up.”

Damian acknowledges this. “If I choose to take it.” There’s been something else on his mind for a while now. “My paternal grandfather was a doctor,” he says. “It… holds an appeal.”

He can already identify a wide variety of toxins from the symptoms they induce. He can stitch flesh wounds and set broken bones. He knows the best balms for a variety of burns: heat, cold, chemical.

He could atone for the lives he took as a child.

“Pre med?” Colin asks. “Gotham is good for that, and the medical school is one of the best in the country, if you don’t mind graduating alongside future supervillains.” He wiggles his fingers in a way apparently meant to convey either Poison Ivy of Scarecrow; Damian isn't sure.

“Do you have any thoughts on a major?”

“I’m looking forward to taking some real random classes at community college,” Colin says. “And don’t start offering me Wayne Foundation scholarships to fancy pants places. Gotham Community has a class on Cheese Tasting.”

“I look forward to following your career with interest,” Damian smirks.

The tour guide leads them into a computer lab.

“You’re going to prom with Maps,” Damian says.

“Uh, yeah.” Colin shrugs. “She’s nice. Who are you taking?”

Damian ignores the question. “Have you entered into a romantic relationship? You have poor timing. She’s spending the summer in Korea, and will be attending Pomona in fall.”

“It’s prom, Dami, not a marriage proposal. I mean, yeah, we’re dating, but it’s not that serious. We’ll decide in the summer if we want to try long distance, I guess.” Colin nudges Damian with his shoulder. “She’s got a very hot Robin cosplay costume.”

Damian glares at him. “If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so. You don’t need to be deliberately off-putting.”

Colin grins. “You never answered my question. Who are-”

Damian sees Tim.

It’s like being physically punched in the chest. The air just leaves him. His vision fuzzes around the edges and his ears roar with the sound of his own blood. His focus narrows until all he can see is Tim. The way the light from the computer screen makes his skin glow. The bags under his eyes. The messy bun with two pens stuck in it, one missing its cap.

“Are you okay?”

Damian shakes his head.

Tim looks up.

He doesn’t look as thunderstruck as Damian feels, which is unfair, because Damian always knew there was a chance of seeing Tim today and Tim had no such warning.

Tim waves.

Damian makes a conscious effort to raise his arm. He has to really think about each muscle, which ones to contract, which ones to relax. It’s too much effort to make his hand move as well, so he just leaves it there, hoping the gesture is enough.

They said they’d be normal. Damian can’t afford to fail at that. To fail Tim.

“Wait, is that your brother? You want to go over and say hi properly?”

To Damian’s intense relief, the tour moves on.

#

Tim stares at his hand in betrayal. He _waved_?

Damian had stared at him like he’d grown another head, and with good reason. The first time they’d seen each other since coming back to Gotham, and Tim had waved at him like he was the Queen of England.

It’s sort of a relief to accept that the normal they promised each other isn’t a real option. With practice Tim can probably fake it, but right now he’s just a collection of awkward body parts all running different scripts. His face is as blank as if he’d seen a stranger, his legs are twitching like they want to run over to Damian and throw Tim at him, his stomach is churning like a teenager with their first crush, his hands are apparently still doing their own weird thing (he’s _still_ waving, even though Damian has left). 

His heart is pounding like he just saw his husband for the first time in weeks.

He curls both hands in his lap and tries to think.

He’s in the middle of coding an app to submit as part of his final grade, but it’s all just gibberish on the screen now. He’s not going to get any more work done today.

Okay, so, step one, save his work, log off. He can do that.

He does that.

What’s his next step?

Leave the lab. Let someone else have the computer.

Okay, so he’s outside now. It’s drizzling. 

He feels like his life has collapsed to the fiendish simplicity of a text adventure game. _The path forks ahead of you._ Take the right hand path. _The path forks ahead of you._ Take the left hand path. _There is an ogre in the path. You are killed._. Everything so tightly focused that you never see anything coming because your entire world is boiled down to left or right.

The path forks ahead of him. He turns left.

There is a coffee shop in his path. He enters the coffee shop.

There is a Damian in the coffee shop.

Damian holds out a muffin and a to go cup of freshly squeezed of orange juice.

“The coach has left,” Damian says. “I told them I would get a ride home with you. I wanted to make sure you are well.”

The sofas where Tim’s study group normally meets are busy. The whole shop is packed with students scribbling last minute essays and sharing library books.

They sit at one of the outside tables. The rain gives them their privacy.

“You don’t need to give me a lift,” Damian says. “I can make my own way home.”

Tim drinks the orange juice. It’s sharp and refreshing, and maybe he has been failing at basic self care recently because he swears he feels incipient scurvy retreating.

“Thank you,” he says. He rubs his thumb against the side of the cup, smearing the rain drops. “You’re so much better at looking after me than I am.”

Something changes in Damian, and Tim looks over at him, trying to figure out what.

“Is it… normal enough?” Damian asks, voice guarded.

“How is normal working for you?” Tim asks. “I thought I was doing okay, but it turns out I’m really, really not.”

“Similarly,” Damian says, “except for the first part. I lack your capacity for self-delusion.”

Tim can see the pain in his brother’s eyes, what he’s endured just because Tim asked him to. Ask the impossible of Damian, and he will try and try until he remakes the world.

Sisyphus, the boulder, and the mountain. They can’t change themselves, they can’t change the weight they have to bear, but maybe, just maybe, they can change the mountain.

“We need a new plan,” Tim says. “I don’t know what. I keep coming up with things, but I’m in the middle of finals and I just don’t have the capacity.” He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “I keep dreaming about you.”

Damian presses his leg against Tim’s.

“Do you think it will be easier to pretend to the world that things are normal, if we stop pretending to ourselves?” he asks.

“I think so,” Tim says. “It already feels different.”

“That’s probably the vitamin C,” Damian says. “Your immune system is very grateful.”

Tim snorts. “Coffee has vitamins in it.”

“Coffee berries have vitamins.” Damian smiles at him. “You are right, though. Maybe it is just being in your company again, but I feel… lighter. Less like the whole thing was a fever dream and I’m a fool for clinging to the memories. I was disturbed by the thought of seeing you today. Upset by everything I imagined you might and might not say. That, for you, things would be ‘normal’.”

Tim feels a lump grow in his throat. He puts a hand on Damian’s thigh and squeezes. Damian puts his hand over Tim’s.

“I’m so sorry,” Tim says. “I’m so sorry I put you through that.”

“I am sorry I doubted you,” Damian says. “That I thought your feelings would be so easily put aside.” He squeezes Tim’s hand. “Ya amar, if there is a way forwards, you will light upon the path.”

“I think we do have to pretend, for a while longer at least. Has Bruce said anything about my adoption?”

“Not to me.”

“That’s good. If he starts setting those wheels back in motion it’ll draw Ra’s back out, and the longer we can put that off the better. We’ll be in a better position to deliver the news in the summer. Rites of passage are significant; if we can wait until after you’ve graduated high school people will be more likely to view you as a consenting adult.”

“And you will not longer be distracted by college.”

“Exactly.”

“In the meantime, we must go on as brothers.” Damian’s eyes meet Tim’s. “Pretend to be normal.”

“I’m starting to hate that word,” Tim says, “but yes, I think a certain amount of deceit is necessary for now. To the others.”

Damian’s hand is warm on his, and they’re pressed together shoulder to hip to knee to foot. The rain is getting harder. Tim’s finished Damian’s gifts. They should go back to his apartment, get warm and dry. Share a coffee.

He opens his mouth to propose just that, when Damian’s hand slips from his and lands on Tim’s thigh. It’s a light touch, but deliberate. Reminiscent of the plane.

Tim’s breath catches in his chest and his belly turns tight and hot.

He makes himself pull away, slide along the bench and let the cold rain fall between them. 

“Tim?”

“I want to,” Tim says. “Don’t think I don’t, Damian. But it’s dangerous to give into temptation right now, without a plan.”

“I thought we only had to pretend around the others.”

“If I take you to bed now, I don’t think I could let you back out again. Bruce would come looking sooner or later.”

“So instead we stay celibate until the summer?” Damian scoffs. “I hardly see how that will help the pretence, when we’re both aching for each other.”

It’s hard hearing it out loud. Self denial might be one of Tim’s specialities, but this is going to require a whole new kind of willpower.

“It’s too risky. We have to keep to activities that could pass as brotherly. You know what our family is like. Every room is bugged, every phone is tapped.”

“You still owe me a burner phone,” Damian says sourly.

“I’ll get on that,” Tim says.

“The summer,” Damian says. He crosses his arms across his chest. “You will have enough credits to graduate?”

Tim nods. “If I get everything submitted in time.”

Damian stands up. “You should return to the computer lab,” he says. “I will call Pennyworth for a ride home.” He pulls Tim to his feet. “I will see that you are removed from patrol from now until your deadline.”

“Are you going to send me dinner and set my alarm clocks for me too?” Tim asks, amused.

Damian arches an eyebrow at him. “I consider it my conjugal duty.”

Tim squeezes his hand.

“I look forward to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this chapter had Maps in it (because Maps is awesome) but I felt bad using her solely as a sounding board for Damian and never again, so I swapped her out for Colin, because there's more of an existing relationship to build on and he pops up later on too. And I miss Colin!


	13. In which an apology only makes things worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got tickets for Glastonbury! And a stinking cold, which is less exciting.
> 
> This chapter is heavy on the angst, mostly based around the 2009-2011 Red Robin run.

It’s Sunday and Tim has been invited over for family dinner. He has no good reason to say no.

It’s weird being back in the mansion. He’s dropped into the cave a couple of times since Turkey, but he hasn’t been in the building above ground. It feels very familiar but also slightly off, like he’s visiting a museum display of a room he used to live in.

Tim hears a TV in the bowels of the mansion, and follows the noise until he reaches the den. Damian is sat in an armchair, a college prospectus balanced on crossed legs, watching what Tim thinks is Mary and the Witch's Flower.

Tim leans in the doorway and watches his husband. Damian is wearing a burgundy polo shirt and black slacks. There’s a hole in the sole of one of his socks that he clearly doesn’t know about yet, or he’d have given it to Alfred to darn already. A cup of tea is balanced on the arm of the chair, a squeezed lemon wedge on the saucer and a bowl of brown sugar cubes is on the coffee table.

He’s beautiful, and he’s Tim’s, and even if they have to pretend for a little while longer that it’s not so at least they don’t have to lie to themselves.

“Hey.”

Damian’s head snaps up, and his whole face lights up with pleasure when he sees Tim.

“Drake.”

It’s nothing like the way he used to say it. It sounds a lot like “I love you”, to Tim’s ears.

“Damian.” Tim tries to imbue his own words with as much sentiment.

Damian uncurls himself from the chair, catching the teacup as it starts to slide off the arm, and stands up.

“You’re here for dinner?”

Tim nods. He walks into the room, but stops a couple of paces short of Damian.

He has no idea what to do now.

“Tim?”

He knows what he wants to do, which is take Damian in his arms and tell his baby bat how beautiful he is, curl up with him on the sofa and ask him about his day, pepper his face with kisses while Damian complains about how ludicrously easy college is going to be. Love him, tease him, hold him.

They’re in the mansion. They have to pretend to be normal.

“What are you watching?” Tim asks. He turns his body, bends his knees, sits on the sofa. It’s mechanical and jerky, but it’s normal, right? You sit on the sofa and watch TV.

Damian casts a derisive glance at the television. “A children’s movie. It’s just background noise.” He sits down next to Tim, keeping a careful six inches between them.

Sometimes Jason hijacks Tim’s Netflix account because he can’t be bothered to pay for his own. Tim doesn’t always notice, and he’ll check Currently Watching list and find half a dozen shows on it he doesn’t remember starting, but he might have done after patrol or in the background of studying, and he has to watch them to figure it out.

More annoyingly, Jason has a tendency to watch episodes of stuff Tim’s halfway through. Tim will spend a day at college and come home and put on Call The Midwife to find he’s suddenly on the season finale instead of the Christmas special because Jason’s been “checking it out”. His Lost rewatch will leap forwards to the next season. The Good Place will jump back five episodes because that’s where Jason left off.

Sometimes Jason will deliberately pick an episode way ahead so “Continue Watching” will launch Tim into completely the wrong place, just to troll him. Friends will suddenly be on the one with the shark porn instead of the one where Phoebe’s in porn.

That’s how Tim feels right now. Is this the next episode, or has he skipped a season? Everything looks the same, but that’s just set dressing. It’s like he’s picked up a book and can’t remember what page he was on. Was it normal for them to hang out together and watch a film before Turkey? He doesn’t remember ever doing it, but it might be a plausible next step for their ‘brotherly’ relationship.

“What were you working on in the computer lab?” Damian asks.

“It’s an app,” Tim says. “It’s mostly just a bit of fun. It’s, uh, inspired by you.”

Damian’s eyes widen.

“Everything you arranged for me: the cleaners and the coffee. It’s… It’s sort of like a digital, modular Alfred. It’s not a third party listing app, though, it’s not a rehash of gumtree. The rational behind it is the idea that we get bogged down in the idea we have to do all these things for ourselves to prove we’re proper adults.”

“But if you look at it rationally, it’s cheaper to outsource it than it is to spend your own time on it,” Damian says.

“Yes. Well, for us, anyway. But the flip side of it is a lot of these tasks are traditionally coded as feminine, and therefore undervalued, so it’s about taking that hard dollar value and demonstrating that the average stay at home mother should be paid a salary of $162,000. And working women still do almost twice as much housework as men; the disparity actually increases after marriage!”

The M word is heavy on his tongue, and he feels the blush rising in his cheeks as he meets Damian’s eyes and immediately looks away. But he can’t stop himself from risking another glance and Damian’s flushed as well, his own eyes flicking away and back again and away again.

It couldn’t be any more obvious they’ve got a secret.

It’s a delicious feeling.

“Anyway,” Tim clears his throat and turns his gaze back to the television, “basically users enter their salary, if they have one, and a breakdown of how they spend their time - work, travel, chores, fun - and the app suggests chores it would make sense to outsource. It then provides a list of local businesses - vetted, of course - that provide those services while paying their staff a living wage.”

“Like you say, a lot of these jobs are undervalued.” Damian fiddles with his tea cup.

“What the fuck are you two talking about?”

Jason leans in the doorway.

“I have to create an app for my computer science class,” Tim says. “It’s-”

“Boring as all get out?”

“Yeah, that,” Tim says. “You’re here for dinner too?”

“Yeah. Promised B a while back, and couldn’t keep putting it off.” 

Tim and Damian exchange a glance as Jason settles himself on the end of the sofa. They both know Jason could avoid the manor for years if he chose to.

“Studio Ghibli?” he nods at the TV.

“Studio Ponoc,” Tim says. “Miyazaki retired. But he’s coming back for a special film for the Tokyo Olympics, so I don’t really know any more.”

“Nerd,” Jason says, and ruffles his hair. Damian smirks.

Tim settles into the cushions. Damian pulls his legs up onto the sofa, elbow on the arm of the chair, feet tucked against Tim’s hip. Jason turns sideways on, flinging his legs over both of them and pinning them in place. Tim’s a little too warm, and he’s got multiple bony limbs digging into him, and he has no idea what’s going on in the film. It feels good. It feels right.

It feels _normal_.

“So,” Jason says, “what’s the deal with the Reepicheep dude?”

#

Alfred calls them all down to dinner and they’re on their way when Bruce sticks his head out of his office.

“Tim, can I borrow you for five minutes?”

“It’s dinner,” Damian says, scowling at his father.

“Five minutes, I swear,” Bruce says. “Tell Alfred to start serving.”

Tim nods at his brothers. “I’ll make sure we’re down promptly,” he says.

He follows Bruce into his office.

Bruce’s office is homely and familiar. The blinds are always lowered and the wall lamps glow warmly. It smells of leather and scotch and Bruce, and Tim is briefly hit with a wave of something he’d call homesickness if he wasn’t standing in the middle of the building he usually calls home.

Bruce glances at the clock on the wall, despite the fact he’s wearing a watch.

“Five minutes,” he says, and smiles at Tim. He leans on the desk, rather than sitting, a visual reminder they shouldn’t get comfortable. Tim folds his hands behind his back and waits.

Bruce smiles at him.

“I’m sorry this has taken so long, Tim,” he says. “I never wanted you to think you weren’t my priority, that I was letting it slip my mind.”

He’s wearing the broken watch Tim gave him for the first father’s day after Tim’s adoption, and Tim’s gut swoops. He remembers that day with fondness and grief. He remembers how important it was to him that he was Bruce’s son, Bruce’s actual son after so many years of being something that was neither one thing nor the other. He remembers having family and not being alone and for the first time being really, truly confident that Bruce was proud of him.

And then Damian had come along.

“I’ve been looking into what went wrong with the paperwork for your adoption, and how we get it straightened out. Judge Dean’s death complicated matters. It’s possible Ra’s took him out, but it’s equally possible he died of natural causes. The most straightforward path is to simply do it all over again, but I’m conscious that if Ra’s dissolved it once, he could do it again.”

Tim presses his lips together and holds his eyes wide open. He feels something suspiciously like tears gathering in them.

Damian had come along and Tim had been pushed aside in favour of the blood son.

“I wanted to get your input on the way forward. Do you think Ra’s would interfere again? He knows you have no interest in his daughters now.”

Bruce had died and Tim had given everything to get him back, but even an internal organ wasn’t enough to win Bruce back once he had Damian.

“Tim?”

When he was fifteen his father died and everyone thought he was crazy for inventing a fake uncle so he wouldn’t have to go through that pain for anyone else.

When he was sixteen Bruce died and everyone thought he was crazy for travelling the world and trying to prove his adoptive father was alive.

_(everyone except Ra’s, he doesn’t think)_

When he was seventeen he set up Captain Boomerang, who had died and dared to come back, and everyone thought the fact he saved him was a sign he wasn’t crazy any more. Except for Bruce, who saw through Tim’s scheming and told him in no uncertain terms how disappointed he was.

Tim had learned that Bruce’s love for him was conditional. Not for Damian, or Dick, or Cass, or Jason. Because they were Bruce’s children.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea right now,” Tim says. “The press furore has only just died down. Ra’s will interfere again to prove he can, and draw as much attention to it as possible in order to embarrass us.” 

He forces a smile. He’s always been good at fake smiles. Lips turned just so, eyes creasing just there, eye contact, head tilt, tongue pressed against the inside of his teeth. Not like Brucie’s fake smiles. 

Tim learned from the masters. 

He learned from his parents.

“We don’t need a piece of paper to tell us we’re family,” Tim says. It sounds heartfelt and genuine.

Bruce’s face, by comparison, falls.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

It’s been two fucking months since Tim was disinherited, and Bruce wants him to believe he’s really Bruce’s priority?

Tim nods. “I really appreciate you taking the time to look into this, and we should talk more about how you want to handle the WE side of things, but we should get down for dinner. Family dinner.” He flashes Bruce the smile again. 

Would it be overkill to hug him? Bruce still looks sad, and despite everything Tim hates hurting him. Bruce isn’t his father. He’s probably a better man than Tim’s father, who would never have kept a broken watch out of sentimentality.

Bruce does love him, Tim knows. Tim loves him back. But Tim grew up with a father who kept him at arm’s length in private and paraded him around in public, a man who never prioritised him, who forgot his birthdays, who spent his childhood trying to turn Tim into an adult before his time, whose love was conditional. Every time Bruce disappoints him or overlooks him, he reminds Tim of Jack Drake.

Because he can’t hug his father any more, Tim does hug Bruce. It’s nice.

#

Damian pulls Tim aside on the way down to the cave. “What’s wrong? What did father say to you?” he asks.

Tim had been miserable throughout dinner. He made polite conversation, talked about his studies, asked Jason about his current cases and took Damian and Jason’s teasing about being the first potential college graduate in the family (there’s still time for him to screw it up yet, he’d warned them). He smiled and laughed and took an interest in everything going on around him.

Tim’s never that happy and relaxed except when he’s faking it. Happy Tim is quiet, distracted, head full of cases and puzzles and half formed ideas that come out in the middle of other people’s conversations as over enthusiastic rambling.

“We talked about the adoption issue,” Tim says, eyes flicking around. There’s nowhere private in this whole estate, and it drives Damian nuts even when he doesn’t have anything to hide.

“I see,” Damian says.

“The non-issue, really,” Tim says.

“I see.”

Tim smiles at Damian. It starts out as the fake smile, then falters, and for a moment Damian thinks Tim is going to cry, but it comes back as something genuine.

“Ra’s will just dissolve it again, if Bruce tries,” Tim says. “I don’t know if I told you, before, but your support against the board at Wayne Enterprises meant a lot to me. I feel like as long as I’ve got you on my side, things will work out. You wouldn’t allow the world to arrange itself in any other way.”

“Of course I’m on your side,” Damian says. “You’re my- You are- We’re-”

He can’t find words that won’t sound suspicious if someone listens back to them.

“To quote Han Solo,” Tim says, “I know.”

Damian frowns at him.

“You should come over,” Tim says. “We’ll have a Star Wars marathon.”

“That’s different to the other one? Star Track?”

Tim smirks. “Yes, baby bat, it is.” He puts a hand on Damian’s arm. “Once prom and finals and graduation and everything else is out of the way, you are going to come over to my place and I will indoctrinate you in the ways of my people.”

Damian’s skin prickles under Tim’s hand. It’s all well and good insisting they won’t have sex, but he desperately wants to spend time with his husband. Even sitting in the den with that inane fantasy movie had been special because Tim had been there with him, enthusing about the animation and cheering on the escaping animals. At dinner Tim had taken his side by turning down roast pork in favour of a slice of Damian’s spinach tart.

“Tt. Your puerile pursuits are not legitimised simply by the existence of other fools who enjoy bright lights and loud noises. If you insist on subjecting me to them, I will require you to provide sufficient sustenance to justify my time,” Damian says, throat tight with emotion that doesn’t match his carefully chosen words.

Tim’s eyes sparkle. “Salt popcorn with M&M’s mixed into it. Gotcha, baby bat.”

Damian rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. Tim increases the pressure on his arm, an affectionate squeeze that will be invisible to any cameras in the vicinity.

”I am willing to tolerate your company for an afternoon, I suppose,” Damian says. 

He’s willing to do whatever it takes to make sure he has Tim’s company for the rest of his life, and from the look on Tim’s face, his husband knows it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hate the way Bruce treats Tim in the final issue of Red Robin. He's got multiple children who've killed, but Tim testing himself, contemplating whether the sheer hell he's been through in the past year is enough to make him cross that line (and deciding it isn't), is apparently a step too far. And there's an argument that it's because Bruce sees so much of himself in Tim that he holds him to a higher standard, and that Tim came to him specifically to stop him crossing the line while trudging through his own hell, but instead of offering Tim any kind of support he just scolds the one guy who kept looking for him when everyone else thought he was dead, who gave up an internal organ in the fight to bring him back, who has suicidal impulses, and pushes him away.
> 
> So this is my Fuck You Very Much Indeed Bruce chapter. I'm nicer to him in the next one (another bonus chapter midweek!).
> 
> (also, I couldn't find a way to work it in here, because it's not something Tim is thinking about under the circumstances, but Bruce being a dick was the final nudge that got Tim going to therapy on a regular basis, which is why he's not in quite such a dark place any more - it'll come up more in later chapters)


	14. Interlude: Bruce and Jason

Jason refuses to keep any gear in the mansion, so Bruce is expecting him to leave after dinner, but instead he follows Bruce down to the cave.

“I’m not patrolling with you,” Jason says bluntly.

“I know,” Bruce says.

“But I came to dinner, like we agreed.”

Bruce nods. He’s not sure where Jason is going with this. He finds the young man hard to read, the tells his son grew up with lost in that hulking frame. He focuses on pulling on his gloves, waiting to see where Jason is going with this.

“I hung out with the baby bats. Something’s still off, there.”

“I know.” He uses Batman’s voice to shut the conversation down. Tim’s laissez faire attitude to the adoption issue is an open wound Bruce isn’t willing to deal with yet. He reminds himself that Tim’s emotional walls are the legacy of his birth parents. As much as he’d like to break them down, they’re an integral part of who Tim is, and if his son insists on holding him at a distance Bruce has to try and respect that.

What hurts more is when Tim doles his affection out in calculated bursts, like hugging him earlier.

The worst part is seeing his own approach to social interactions reflected back at him. This many smiles plus precisely this much physical affection multiplied by the number of available in jokes equals the perceived closeness of the relationship. 

Tim’s right that they don’t need paperwork to mark them as father and son.

“I’m going back to college,” Jason blurts suddenly. “Well, not back. But to college.”

The pride that hits Bruce is like a being suddenly caught in a downpour. One moment the air is hot and heavy, then the pressure changes so sharply you think your ears are going to pop and then rain hits you in a solid sheet. Bruce’s stomach is swooping like a roller coaster and blood is roaring in his ears, and every inch of his body is pure liquid pride.

His gauntlet falls to the floor. Bruce wants to grab his son, hug him, but he’s not a tiny bird any more and Jason, Red Hood, has boundaries Bruce isn’t going to disrespect now.

He doesn’t stop himself from smiling, though. It feels strange on his face, his muscles more used to holding back expressions like this.

“What are you studying?” Bruce asks.

Jason shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks on his heels, eyeing Bruce warily. “Literature,” he says.

“It was always your favourite subject.”

“Yeah.”

“Obviously, you’ve got free rein over the library here.” Bruce wants to offer him all the support he’d have had if life had gone to plan, but Jason doesn’t need his father’s name or money any more.

“That’s… thanks. I mean, a lot of it’s modern stuff, but if there is anything classic, I’ll keep it in mind.” Jason’s hair is curling over his eyes, the white lock brushing his nose. “I’ll probably write notes in them, you know. Dog ear the pages.”

“You can have that fight with Alfred,” Bruce says. “God knows I did. It’s not like I was the first, either. Most of the books have annotations from some ancient Wayne or another. Great great grandfather William had a predilection for leaving dirty latin limericks about Dickens characters in the margins.”

“I remember,” Jason says. “Alfred refused to translate them for me and Hard Times disappeared from the library altogether.”

Bruce snorts. “I’m sure.”

Jason stoops to pick up Bruce’s glove and hands it back to him. Bruce accepts it, but doesn’t put it on.

“If there’s anything on your course you think we should add to the library, let me know. It could use some new additions.”

“New _e_ ditions.” Jason treats Bruce to a rare flash of his genuine smile. It’s not calculated, like Tim, or begrudgingly given, like Damian. Bruce feels himself returning it.

“I know you don’t need anything from me, but if there’s anything you _want_...” Bruce spreads his hands. “I want to support you in this. I’m… I’m very proud.”

“I’m not doing it for you,” Jason says, but it’s almost like a reflex.

“I know. It’s good to see you doing it for yourself.”

Jason nods. “So, i guess I’ll be around a bit more,” he says. “Keep an eye on the baby bats, too, make sure next time they get plucked from your shadow there’s someone around to _actively_ look for them.”

“I appreciate your support.” He means it to sound dry, an echo of his earlier words, but the sincerity behind the words seeps through and shocks both of them into an awkward silence, broken only by the echo of footsteps on the stairs.

“Jason,” Tim calls across the batcave, “sweet popcorn with salted peanuts, or salted popcorn with chocolate m&ms?”

“Uh.”

“Like, they’re both salt and sweet combinations, but baby bat here will only consider the latter.”

“Chocolate covered pretzels,” Bruce says decisively, finishing the argument for them, and pulls his glove on. “Suit up.”

Jason grimaces. “How am I hungry again already?” He watches Bruce pull the cowl over his head, frowning, and scuffs his boot against the floor. “I’m heading back up, talk to Al about the library. He’s got it catalogued, right?”

“I believe so.”

“Yeah. So.” He shrugs, and starts walking away. He’s halfway to the stairs when he pauses, and says without turning around, “salt water taffy.”

“Salt water- Ugh.” Red Robin steps out of the changing room. “The killing people I can live with, but liking salt water taffy? You raised him wrong, Bruce.”

Bruce watches his son disappear through the clock. Sometimes he thinks he failed Jason as a father in every way possible, but right now, knowing Jason is going to college, going to study something he loves - not because Batman wants him to, not to make Bruce proud, not for the mission, but because he has a genuine passion for it - Bruce thinks that maybe, just maybe, he did get something right.


	15. In which Damian attends prom with a promise in his pocket

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's more porn in this chapter! Hope you've been missing it ^_^ Angsty porn, because really, at this point, what else do you expect from me?
> 
> I don't really understand the way American high schools and universities work despite a steady diet of high school dramas. You do your big exams as Juniors, then pick a university during your senior year, but don't pick a subject to study at university until after you're already there? It all seems so back to front compared with the UK (not that our system makes a ton of sense either). One of the reasons I'm so vague about the timeline is I only have half an idea of how close or far apart various milestones actually happen.
> 
> Also, I'm 99% sure the DC universe has an in-universe version of the iPhone, but I can't remember what it is, so I've gone with iStar.

There are two discreetly wrapped boxes on Damian’s dressing table. One has been placed there by Alfred, along with a note from his father apologising for being unable to be there in person tonight. Damian has already scanned it, and believes it contains a tie pin and cuff-links. He suspects that when he opens it, they will be a set that belonged to his great grandfather. Father had strongly encourages him to go with the sapphire cummerbund tonight, though Katherine is wearing burgundy.

It’s strange, taking Clayface’s daughter to prom. Damian had expected his father to protest her parenthood, but he seemed more concerned that Damian was escorting a young woman.

Damian had shrugged. “It’s for form’s sake. She will spend most of the evening with Maps, and I with Colin, no doubt. I am not attracted to her, father. It is not a comment on my sexuality.”

And his father had backed off the subject.

What’s attracting Damian’s attention now, keeping him standing around in just a towel rather than getting dressed, is the second box on his dressing table.

It wasn’t there when he entered the bathroom. It is there now.

It’s larger than the first box, shallower and wider. It’s neatly wrapped in brown paper.

He should fetch the scanner again and check it out, but his instincts are telling him not to draw attention to it. If he can’t look inside it, he can at least look inside himself. What is the source of these instincts?

This isn’t his usual evening routine, so anyone planning to leave a bomb or trap would have to have observed him directly (or know it was prom tonight). The sensors outside haven’t gone off. His window is shut, and has remained so while he was out of the room. Breaking into his room is next to impossible, even for family members. Completely impossible for anyone who isn’t in the family.

He inhales, focuses, and he knows why he trusts the box and why he wants to keep it a secret. There’s coffee in the air.

It makes him a little giddy. Tim has been here. His husband. He’s brought him a gift. He might still be somewhere in the building. If Damian follows the smell he might find him.

But if Tim had wanted to meet, he’d have waited for Damian.

Damian stares around the room. Did Tim sit on the bed? Did he stand in front of the mirror? Can Damian find his prints in the plush carpet? Where did he stand, what did he do, did he think of Damian?

Well, obviously he thought of Damian. He brought him a gift.

Damian wraps his arms around himself. He wants to stand here and inhale Tim’s smell until it dissipates. He imagines Tim doing the same, breathing in Damian’s scent.

He’s going to be late if he doesn’t start getting dressed soon. He has to pick the others up.

But Tim was here.

He allows himself another thirty seconds of foolishness.

When the time is up he forces himself to start moving again. He dresses. He grooms himself. He opens his father’s gift, observes he was correct about the pin and cufflinks, and adds them to his outfit. He pins his corsage in place.

He picks up Tim’s gift. Focuses on the way the paper feels under his fingertips (Tim held it). He slides a finger under the tape and peels it open (Tim wrapped it). The box inside is an old model of iStar, one he upgraded from a couple of years ago. The screen is cracked. It’s very similar to the one that’s languishing in a drawer of his dresser.

He’d almost forgotten Tim’s promise. His memories of their wedding night and anticipation of nights to come has kept him reasonably content.

Damian turns the phone on.

The lock screen is an old photo of Titus. There are two text messages waiting for him.

__

~bb  
The phone is PAYG; I’ve preloaded it with $50 credit. I’ve disabled the wifi and bluetooth, but it hasn’t had the usual modifications that might attract attention. I suggest only connecting to mobile data while in the city. I’ve installed commonly used apps, but not logged any in. The content you are looking for is inside a subfolder I’ve added to the notepad directory. Don’t reply to these messages.  
<3  
Moon emoji~

The second text is much shorter.

__

~I couldn’t resist. There’s another subfolder in the Neko Atsume app. Enjoy!~

Damian goes straight into the directory and seeks out the file Tim has tucked inside the cat game.

That’s Tim’s dick.

Damian steps backwards until he feels the edge of his bed against the backs of his knees, and sits down heavily.

There’s a dozen photos in the album. They’re carefully shot - they’re beautifully shot, from an artistic perspective - to avoid any identifying features. Damian knows it’s Tim’s dick, Tim’s ass, Tim’s nipples, Tim’s abs, but there are several tattoos he knows Tim doesn’t have covering up his more distinctive scars. Something to throw anyone not as intimately acquainted with Tim’s body off the scent. They must be transfers, but Damian’s gut goes tight at the mental image of his husband decorated with ink. Damian would design something _beautiful_ for him.

Damian glances over at the clock on his bedside table. He’s going to be late. It isn’t in his nature to let people down.

He tries to strategise. He’s pretty certain he could bring himself to orgasm very quickly, but he’ll be flushed and sweaty after. He knows Alfred is going to want to take a picture of him before he leaves, and the idea of something post-orgasmic being pasted into the family album is discomforting, to say the least. He could try and evade the older man, but he’s not confident about his chances. Katherine’s mother is probably going to want photos as well, and even if he ignores Colin’s instructions and picks up Maps next (it’s the logical order, but Colin wants to be the one who knocks on Maps’ door) it’s unlikely he’ll be able to make up enough time.

He really regrets his earlier dithering. What was Tim’s smell, compared with Tim’s artfully lit black and white shot of his own erection?

Nevertheless, these are the choices he’s made. The photos will remain in his possession. They will be here later, after prom. He has self control. He has patience. He can wait.

“Master Damian?” Alfred’s voice echoes up the stairs.

Damian swallows. He has self control. He has patience.

He stands up. He adjusts himself as much as he dares, skirting the cliff edge of temptation. He puts Tim’s gift into his breast pocket, and puts his usual phone into his trousers. It ruins the line of his pants, but also disguises the bulge in his crotch.

He can wait.

“Coming,” he calls back.

It’s a rite of passage into adulthood. Enough rites, and the family will view him as an adult, and he and Tim will be able to tell them, and there won’t be a need for photos hidden inside a game hidden inside an old burner photo hidden in his pocket.

#

Katherine has got bored of his distracted state, which is fair. Colin and Maps have been staring into each other’s eyes more than Damian anticipated. On the one hand, it means he doesn’t have to worry about giving Colin the slip, but on the other it means he hasn’t been able to offload Katherine on her friend.

Damian did Katherine the honour of two dances, which he felt was probably the minimum he ought to offer as her date. He plans to ask her again once more, before the evening is over, to fulfil his duties. They have posed for photos. He has drunk a plastic cup of adulterated punch.

No one is paying attention to him now. Most of the detective club graduated last year (not that all of them were still talking to him) and Damian hasn’t bothered make additional friends for a single year of companionship (why should he, with Tim an increasing presence in his life?). His yearbook is full of empty platitudes from people who don’t know him. Classmates making the round to chat and dance with people for what might be the last time skirt around him. Even Goldwater has better things to do with his time than interact with Damian tonight.

The burner phone is an ever-present weight against his chest.

He promised himself he’d wait.

He’s standing against the wall, watching his classmates dance. Is this really the best use of his time?

He’s not _like_ them.

It reminds him of his first day, surrounded by strangers. Everything sets him apart from them. He’s had the power of life and death in his hand. He’s visited distant worlds and underworlds. He’s flown. He’s died. He’s saved the world.

He’s got married.

Damian pushes away from the wall. The advantage of a school like Gotham Academy is the estate that surrounds it. He can pass his departure from the hall off as going out for air, and slip around the side of the building. Past the parking lot, past the gym, around the pool. The hedge maze looms before him. He half expects it to be full of courting couples, but the night is still early and it’s a long way in the dark from the prom. He hears a handful of people fumbling around, some whispered gasps, but he traces the perimeter until he reaches the junction with the school building. There’s a gap of a few feet between the hedge and wall, and it’s here he inserts himself.

Once he’s confident he can’t be seen from any angle, he takes the burner phone out of his pocket.

He opens it, and the folder of erotic images glows up at him.

He unzips his fly with his other hand.

The first photo is a black and white shot of Tim’s cock, erect, resting against his thigh. Damian runs his hand up his hardening dick, and imagines taking Tim in his mouth. He presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth, remembering the head of Tim’s cock against his soft palate. He swallows reflexively.

The next photo is Tim’s hand around his cock, precum beading at the tip. The angle shows off more of his belly, hairs of his happy trail curling against his knuckles. This one is in colour. There’s a fake aperture tattoo on his hip that Damian wants to run his tongue over. He can imagine his own hand around the base of Tim’s cock, squeezing rhythmically as he bobs his head. Tim would put his hands in Damian’s hair, run his fingers over Damian’s scalp, call him baby bat and tell him how good he’s making Tim feel.

The third photo is not as well taken. Tim’s cock isn’t centred in it, the focus isn’t quite right. The hand is blurred with movement. He’s clearly very close to coming.

Damian bites down on his bottom lip to keep the whine that’s threatening to burst free inside. Tim would ask him to be quiet. He imagines Tim’s hand over his mouth, Tim’s voice in his ear, telling him to be so good.

The fourth photo is completely out of focus. Tim’s cock is a pale blur. The light has caught on the ropes of cum coming from it, on the pearls caught on the hairs of his belly.

He imagines... he imagines Tim imagining him, and coming.

Damian comes in his boxer shorts.

His knees go weak and he slumps against the wall of the school. He can’t hear the music, but he feels the vibrations through the brick work.

He presses his cheek against the damp wall. He lets himself whine now, barely a breath against the night breeze.

He cleans himself up with his handkerchief, and cleans the excess from his handkerchief with leaves from the hedge. Once the handkerchief is merely damp, he stuffs it back into his pocket. He’ll rinse it out in the sink when he gets home before it goes in the laundry where Alfred might find it.

He flicks through the other photos Tim sent. It’s no substitute for having him there. He wants Tim’s lips against his. He wants Tim’s arms around him. He wants to be told how well he’s done.

There’s Tim’s abs, still splattered with cum. There’s Tim toying with one of his nipples. There’s the curve of Tim’s ass, and there’s Tim’s fingers, and there’s Tim two knuckle deep in his own hole.

Damian’s cock twitches, oversensitive against the silk of his boxers.

He wants to think of Tim thinking of him, fingering himself like Damian does, but what he most wants to think of is Tim holding him and mangling Arabic terms of endearment at him.

He misses Tim, misses him viscerally. The pictures make it worse. It’s like Tim is taunting him with every part of his body apart from his face. Damian wants to see Tim’s sharp blue eyes lighting up at the sight of him, Tim’s soft lips curving up with approval, Tim’s aquiline nose pressed affectionately against his forehead. 

He opens the text messages. He knows he should delete them, but he _needs_ them. Needs to see the moon emoji, needs to hear Tim’ voice behind the word “Enjoy”.

His pant’s pocket buzzes. Damian frowns at the phone in his hand before remembering he’s carrying two tonight.

He takes out his proper phone. He blinks a couple of times before he can focus. His eyes are hot and damp.

__

~Where are you?~

Oh right. Prom. Colin. Maps and Katherine. Everyone he doesn’t give a shit about.

Damian makes sure his fly is up and his tux is neat and tidy.

He finds Colin in the parking lot.

“Hey. You disappeared.”

Damian nods.

“You okay?”

Damian shrugs.

“You wanna go?”

“Do you?” Damian asks.

“It’s your car,” Colin points out. “I swear, Damian, this is prom and I’ve spent more time with your date than you have. You don’t have to hide if you’re having a shitty time.”

Damian opens his mouth, but he doesn’t know how to tell Colin anything without telling him everything.

“Maps and Katherine are going to an after party,” Colin says, “but I don’t know that people of my income class are welcome.”

Of course Colin is welcome. Colin is welcome wherever he goes. He has that sort of personality.

Damian should tell him to go, offer to give them all a ride and put in an appearance himself, but he really doesn’t want to. He wants to go home and feel sorry for himself and maybe text his husband about carefully neutral brotherly topics, just to hear Tim’s voice in his head.

“Yeah,” Colin says, “we’re going home.”

Damian lets Colin steer him towards the car.

He pulls up outside Colin’s foster parents’ place. The Booths are a nice couple (Damian checked them out very, very thoroughly). They’re a little perplexed by Colin’s friends, but they’re always polite.

He waits for Colin to get out of the car, but his friend stays put.

“Why did you ask Katherine to be your date?”

“Why not?”

“Well, because you’re not into her.”

“I’m not into women,” Damian says.

“Yeah, I figured.” Colin twists in his seat to look at Damian. “Would they let you bring a guy?” he asks.

Damian releases a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. Colin gives him that smile he reserves for the moments he catches Damian accidentally doing something human. Apparently coming out counts.

“I don’t know,” Damian says. "I didn't ask."

“There’s someone you wanted to take, isn’t there? I mean, I was watching you, and you looked at every person in there like they were failing to compare.”

Damian can feel the burner phone heavy against his chest.

“You wanna tell me?” Colin asks.

“Yes, but I can’t,” Damian says.

“Why not?”

“It’s too soon.”

“Yeah?” Colin smiles. “Something new?”

“Something no one is going to approve of.”

“It’s not Jon, is it? He’s too wholesome for you.”

Damian laughs bitterly. “I wish you’d told me that last year,” he says. “It’s not him.”

“You need me to beat him up?” Colin asks. “I think I could.”

Damian cocks his head to one side and runs various scenarios through his head. “It could go either way,” he says. “Are you sure you don’t want to join the Titans?”

“It’s not my scene.”

“No.” Damian pulls his feet onto the seat, shins against the steering wheel, and rests his chin on his knees. “Wilkes, if I tell you, you must swear to keep it a secret. You will consider telling other people. You will think that it’s in my interest to tell someone. You have to promise me that you won’t, though.” His voice is thick and his eyes are getting hot again. 

He knows he shouldn’t tell anyone, not yet, but he needs someone on his side, someone by his side.

“Dames, you know I know how to keep a secret. And I know you know how to look after yourself. If I think something bad’s going on with you, you’re the person I’m gonna tell.”

“It’s Drake,” Damian says.

“Your brother.”

“He’s not my brother,” Damian says. “Not legally. And not… that’s never been our relationship.”

“Okay, so… what is your relationship? Are you guys dating?”

“It’s complicated. But it’s serious.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think it was gonna be casual, with you. But it’s a secret right now? Family are going to freak?”

Damian nods. His chin slides against the expensive fabric of his pants.

“That’s tough. You gonna see him tonight? Get yourself a bit of that prom night magic?”

“We agreed not to. We haven’t decided how to tell the family, yet, but we are both in agreement that the risk they find out _that_ way is not one we want to take.”

Colin huffs and laughs. “Yeah, no, I can see that. Have you guys done _that_ yet?”

“Yes.” Damian allows himself a smug smile. “Extensively.”

Colin holds a hand up for a fist bump. After a pause to pretend he’s too dignified for this sort of teenaged machismo, Damian gives Colin what he wants.

“Am I the only one who knows?” Colin asks.

Damian uncurls. It’s awkward getting his long legs back under the wheel, but he manages it eventually.

“Yes.”

“Cool. You ever need me to cover for you, like say you’re with me when you’re with him, just let me know.”

“I wouldn’t put you in that position. We’re not seeing much of each other at the moment, anyway. The temptation is too great. He needs to finish college and I need to graduate.” Damian runs his hands up and down the rim of the steering wheel. “Thank you for offering. Thank you for listening. I… needed someone to talk to.”

“I’m always here, Dames.”

“You are,” Damian acknowledges. “You extended me the hand of friendship before anyone else, and you continue to surpass all others in your support of me. I will try not to burden you with this too much, but it’s difficult when Tim and I have to be so restrained in our own interactions.”

“You’re not a burden, Damian.”

Damian takes a deep breath, exhales. It’s never not a relief to be told that.

“Now,” Damian says, “did you really want to come home, or shall I take you to the after party?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several people have commented about the update schedule for this. I actually started writing this fic while I was also in the middle of Peace Process, which meant I had ten or so chapters finished before I started posting it. Back in my early fandom days I'd have just stuck a chapter up every day and then dropped to a very random schedule (and by my early days, I mean "what I'm doing with Dusk" - that poor fic has rather gone on hiatus as I've plowed on with this one!) but figured twice a week would give me a month to bash out the next few, which has worked because I'm currently wrapping up act two and I'm in the mid-twenties (not including interludes). Plus, I've finally figured out the ending, which always makes reaching it much easier!
> 
> I don't know if I'll actually stick to twice a week all the way to the end, but I can tentatively promise that barring unexpected side plots (or me falling down stairs and ending up in hospital again this year - they say third time's the charm!) I should reach the end sometime before Christmas.


	16. In which Tim suffers from a serious case of mentionitis

“I swear, Bernard, he looks like he’s haunting them. He’s just in the back of every candid Colin sent me, always glaring straight at the camera, and everyone around him doesn’t even to seem to know he’s there. He’s like the ghost of a guy who died at prom and haunts every party ever since.”

Colin says that Damian is having a good time in the photos, and Tim does believe him (Damian doesn’t have that really blank look he gets when he’s actually miserable, just his “foolish mortals” scowl), but the pictures are hilarious. At some point around midnight, Damian has clearly cottoned on, because he’s doing it on purpose. Tim just wants to dive into the photos and grab his husband, drag him away from the drunk teenagers around him to somewhere Damian can vent about it. Tim didn’t socialise much in high school, and the idea of sneaking upstairs to a bedroom full of people’s coats and making out for a couple of hours has a wistful appeal.

“Timmy?”

Tim suspects Damian’s said something to Colin. He’s always got on well enough with the kid, but they were Group Chat acquaintances, not IM friends. Now he’s receiving a steady stream of Damian updates: pictures from prom, things Damian said when they were hanging out, cases Colin thinks they should work on together.

And honestly, Tim is thrilled. Every time he gets a message in public he has to school his face into something more appropriate for an older brother, because otherwise he gets what Bart called “schmoopy face” and he might still be able to distract the speedster (“Cissie says hi, by the way” pretty much does it) but he knows if he isn’t careful around his family the whole things is going to come out.

“Yes?”

“That’s the seventh time you’ve brought up your baby brother since we started studying. That’s some serious mentionitis.”

Tim lowers his laptop and frowns at Bernard across the sheets. They’re studying in Bernard’s dorm room, sat on opposite ends of his bed. No room at the coffee shop.

“Serious what?” Tim asks.

“Mentionitis. When you can’t stop talking about someone. Damian did this. Damian knows that. It was Damian’s prom. It’s going to be Damian’s graduation.” Bernard pushes his hair back out of his eyes with the end of his pencil. “It’s a thing,” he says. “It’s a crush thing.”

“It’s confirmation bias,” Tim says firmly. He was not doing the face, he knows he wasn’t, so Bernard is completely off base here. “Maybe I’m just pining for the days of high school.”

“You ditched most of high school.”

“So now I’m coding my heart out and wishing I’d gone to my own prom.”

Bernard shakes his head. “You can’t lie to me, Timmy. I’ve been inside you.”

“That is literally the creepiest way of putting that you could think of, isn’t it?”

“Is it as creepy as crushing on my brother, though?” Bernard taps his pencil against his lips, parodying deep thought. “Hmmm.”

Tim forces himself to sit still. Bernard is just procrastinating. He’s bored of studying and he’s trying to distract Tim. He just has to wait him out.

It’s Bernard. He’s not family. He can’t have figured this out.

“If only I knew Gotham’s most up and coming gossip columnist, who could help me spin this scandal into something more palatable.”

“‘Most up and coming’ isn’t a phrase that makes sense. It’s not a scale.”

“Sure it is. I am significantly more up and coming that the other journalism majors, because I have the hottest tea. Who wrote that Buzzfeed article about the top ten billionaires who should adopt Timmy Drake now that went viral? That’s the most up! Who sold TMZ the story about you and Damian taking on the WE board and getting you your job back? The most coming!”

“What did happen to my cut of all that?”

Bernard leans forward. “Timmy, honey, I’m telling you this as a friend. You’ve got to get in front of this before it breaks. You’ve got it bad for Damian, and Vicky Vale is going to eat you alive if you so much as open your mouth near her. You’re not subtle.”

“I am!”

That might not have been the right answer, judging by the way Bernard looks at him.

“I mean, there’s nothing to be subtle about?”

Bernard raises an eyebrow.

Tim puts his hands on the bed behind him and leans back, staring up at Bernard’s ceiling. He misses Ives, who abandoned him for MIT. Ives was just as socially awkward as Tim, and probably wouldn’t have picked up on the Damian thing if Tim was sitting in his husband’s lap. 

Bernard is a _people person_. He’s good at reading between lines and judging social cues. He’s not Cass (and thank god she’s on the opposite side of the world right now) but he’s a pretty good barometer for the world of people who don’t wear masks so often they get confused when they catch sight of their bare face in a mirror. He listens in a different way when people talk. Actually listens, unlike Tim, a lot of the time. Bernard cares about what’s going on in people’s lives.

Tim, though, Tim is not good at social cues. He can school his body language into submission, but there’s a lot of unknown unknowns when it comes to interacting with the rest of the world. He hasn’t heard of mentionitis before, but it makes sense. Bart talks about Cissie constantly. Kon has stopped talking about Cassie in the same way. Dick can’t shut up about Babs at the moment, which is interesting because he’s seeing someone in the Gotham PD, and Tim files that away as a useful data point.

“Tim? You freaking out?”

Tim considers. “Not as such,” he admits. “Is it really that obvious?”

Bernard drops the pencil.

“Seriously?” he asks.

Tim lowers his gaze from Bernard’s ceiling.

“There’s literally nothing I could say at this point to convince you otherwise, is there?” Tim shrugs. “So, alright, yes. I have feelings for Damian. It’s complicated.”

“Complicated doesn’t cover it. Complicated is for open relationships, or when someone says no to a proposal but wants to keep dating, or how you describe your beard when you haven’t come out to your parents yet. This is… I mean, this is illegal, isn’t it? Adoptive siblings still count as siblings in most states under incest laws.”

“We’re not adoptive siblings.”

“Everyone still thinks of you that way. When People Magazine did that puff piece on exam season, they described you as “Bruce Wayne’s son and heir, who no doubt regrets trying to do due diligence before taking up the reins of his father’s company.”” 

Bernard holds the offending magazine out for Tim to see. The caption is accompanied by a bad picture of him, wearing an oversized hoodie with multiple cans of red bull sticking out the pockets. He couldn’t look less like Brucie if he tried.

“That’s the sort of thing you’d want to get out in front of, right? The sort of thing that needs spinning.”

Bernard stares at him, and for a moment Tim thinks he’s fucked up really, really badly. This is definitely freaking Bernard out. Bernard who’s known Tim since his dad was alive, who’s never known Damian as a child, whose mother is the Mighty N Dowd, whose entire thesis is about the way celebrity family relationships don’t align with traditional expectations due to the impact of the media… If Bernard is freaking out, everyone is going to freak out, and Tim’s going to be strung up on the Batsignal as an example to the rest of the community.

Bernard twists his fingers together. “When you say complicated, do you mean it’s just complicated for you because it’s weird you’re crushing on your brother, or do you mean it’s complicated because you’re actually dating?”

Tim can see the wheels in Bernard’s head start turning. Tim has set Bernard a challenge, and the other boy is nothing if not competitive.

“The latter.”

“Oh, Timmy. Since when?”

Tim swallows. “Since Turkey, officially, but we’ve mostly been avoiding each other since we got back because, well.”

“Because it’s complicated.”

“Yeah.” Tim shifts uncomfortably. “We have to figure out how to tell the family, before they figure it out on their own.”

“Or someone leaks it to the press.”

“You’re the only person I’ve told,” Tim says.

“What, seriously? Not Cissie, not Steph, not any of your friends who happen to live all over the country but still manage to pop over to Gotham for an afternoon sometimes in a way that totally doesn’t make me suspect they’re all former Teen Titans?”

Bernard really notices far too much for his own good.

“Yes,” Tim says tersely, “so if it does leak to the press, you know what’s going to happen to you.”

“You’ll make the contents of my hard drive and search history publicly available?”

“As step one, sure.”

“Noted. Are you fucking?”

“Not since getting back to Gotham.”

“No wonder you can’t stop thinking about him,” Bernard says. He’s chewing on his bottom lip like he’s trying to bite back a smile. “Poor Timmy. Getting a bit pent up, are we?”

“I don’t think this is a helpful avenue to explore,” Tim says sourly.

“Usually you’re only this grumpy when you’re actually getting laid,” Bernard says. “Don’t deny it - sex makes you twitchy and frustrated because you have to compromise with another human being. How good was the sex that you’re actively missing it?”

Tim takes a deep breath. Bernard isn’t wrong about his short temper when he’s seeing someone. It’s like being a tolerable romantic partner takes up so much of his social function he has none left for his friends. He’s an overthinker by nature. Every date takes up 95% of his brain function for at least two days beforehand. Buying condoms requires spreadsheets and league tables. Biting back the bossy sex voice while still trying to appear engaged in sex is exhausting. Everything is exhausting. He’s fallen asleep during sex before because he wore himself out getting to the point of actually ending up in bed with someone.

It’s a very quick way to stop going to bed with someone, it turns out.

“It’s one of several reasons why, ideally, I’d like this relationship to continue without becoming pariahs,” Tim says. “Damian and I are very compatible on several levels.”

He has to hope they’ll remain so, and it’s not just a honeymoon period they’re going through.

“Well, don’t leave him hanging too long. Absence doesn’t actually make the heart grow fonder.”

Tim grits his teeth. “I don’t want to leave him hanging. You have no idea how much I-” he breaks off. “I miss him, Bernard.”

“Yeah, that’s what you were going to say.” Bernard rolls his eyes. “Fine, I get it, you don’t want to talk about the sex. I choose to believe because it’s not as good as ours.” He shrugs. “But, for some reason, you want to keep having it, which means you want other people to be okay with it.”

“Are you?”

“I’m coming around to the idea,” Bernard says. “I mean, it’s cute seeing you crush on someone. I kinda figured you were ace.”

“We had sex.” Tim knows he shouldn’t sound so affronted, especially not when he’s asking someone who is, in at least some respects, an ex to help him make things work with someone else. Tim’s failing that social contract thing again, isn’t he?

“You didn’t like it very much, though, did you?”

Tim opens his mouth to object, but he doesn’t know what the right answer is here.

“Oh, Timmy,” Bernard says. “Your line, if you were wondering, is “I loved it, you were amazing, you ruined me for other men until now”.” Tim opens his mouth and Bernard waves his objection away. “It’s okay. It wasn’t great for me either. If Damian likes being bossed around in the bedroom, more power to the both of you. Being into a bit of dominance and submission isn’t the weirdest part of this relationship.”

“I’m sorry,” Tim says. “This whole thing is weird. I’m weird. It’s weird I’m talking to you about it.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You didn’t even realise you were,” Bernard reminds him. “That’s the first thing we need to work on. You need to break that mental link between you and Damian in the eyes of the world, so when you introduce it again it’s fresh. No talking about him.”

Tim nods. “Okay. I can do that.”

“We don’t want anything about you guys appearing in the press, either. No galas he’s at. No car sharing to Wayne Tower together. Definitely no family photos. And you, my little hacker, need to start scrubbing the internet of all previous references to being brothers. People have short memories, Timmy. If they can’t find evidence it happened, they’ll assume it didn’t.”

Tim makes a note on his laptop. This is something he can do. Something he can control.

“It’s about the stories people tell themselves,” Bernard goes on. “The story we want them to tell is one where Bruce Wayne’s son and Bruce Wayne’s protege go from rivals to friends to lovers. It’s a Dynasty style story of passion and ambition and late nights in the office and business trips to exotic places.”” He eyes up Tim’s stained hoodie and unwashed hair. “This summer we want you in suits. Expensive, tailored suits.”

He rescues his pencil from the floor and pokes Tim’s bangs out of his eyes with it. “You need a colour palette that compliments Damian, but makes you distinct from him and the rest of the family. Not red. Something pastel, maybe? With metallic accents.”

“I think you might be overthinking this,” Tim says.

“You need to reclaim Drake. Build an identity around Drake. An expensive, exclusive identity, so when people say “but weren’t they brothers?” they think of pharaohs and ancient royalty, people so separate from the plebs that of course they end up marrying each other instead. You should start wearing eyeliner more often.” Bernard waves the pencil alarmingly close to Tim’s eyes, like he’s forgotten it’s graphite and not kohl he’s wielding. “You will be the power couple to end all power couples.”

Bernard leans back. “We need to tell a story that’s familiar and comfortable and we need to get rid of anything that might make people stumble when they’re telling it to themselves. People need narrative to make sense of a world that’s basically just chaos. They have to believe that they have control of their own lives, that good things happen to good people and bad things happen for a reason. 

“I mean, half an hour ago the story I told myself was that we never got further than hooking up because you were ace. Now it’s because you’ve got this fated, soap opera style love with your adopted sibling, and you’re controlling in the bedroom because you’re controlling in the boardroom. We’re just from different worlds, Timmy. Your story is Fifty Shades of Wayne, mine is How to Lose a Guy to Ten Gays.”

Timmy snorts. “So I’m the straight guy sidekick - not heterosexual, just serious - in your story who stares directly into the camera when you get in another scrape, and you’re the sassy gay friend who gives me a reality and privilege check in mine?”

“Exactly!”

“Well, as the serious one,” Tim says, “I should probably point out we’ve lost almost an hour of studying now, and I still have to debug this stupid app by Friday, and you have to finish that essay.”

“Spoilsport.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Dowd is a pretty common surname, but personal headcanon is Bernard is the son of supervillain archaeologist an first every Young Justice villain, Might N Dowd (with her huge... tracts of land)


	17. In which head injuries need taking seriously

Damian doesn’t think he’s concussed, but the fact he just missed that handhold because his reaction times are too slow suggests he might be wrong about that. He has some missing time, which suggests he was unconscious, and it’s inevitable that if you’re hit hard enough to lose consciousness you have a concussion.

He counts backwards from ten. It sounds right, but he still has a nagging doubt. Is shoe normally before or after eight? He should seek someone out whose opinion he trusts.

He fires his grapple at the roof of Tim’s building. He watches the hook sail up and away. The line remains in his hand.

He adds another tally to the mental concussion column.

Tim appears.

“Robin? What are you doing here?” He frowns and reaches for Damian’s head. “Are you bleeding?”

“I might have a concussion,” Damian says. “I require your assistance, civilian.”

“Right. Yes.” Tim shifts a paper bag from one arm to the other. Damian frowns. Why is Tim buying groceries? Damian has arranged for everything he needs to be delivered to relieve him of the burden of shopping. “I will, uh. Stay here. I saw Red Robin a few blocks back. I’ll get him.”

Tim hands him the grocery bag and sprints off down the street.

While Damian waits he looks through Tim’s purchases. A pint of phish food ice cream, a six pack of zesti, some hand soap shaped like a cheeseburger, and a candy hot dog.

Red Robin appears at his side.

“Robin! A civilian told me you need assistance.”

Damian side eyes him. “A civilian who eats confectionery shaped like processed meat,” he says.

Red snorts. “Don’t judge. He’s a college student.” He takes Damian by the elbow and steers him into the alley at the side of the building.

He runs his fingers under the edges of Damian’s mask, triggering the lenses, and pulls out a small torch which he shines into Damian’s eyes. Damian tries not to flinch.

“What year were you born?” Tim asks.

“Nineteen eighty seven,” Damian says promptly.

Even under the cowl, he can tell that Tim is raising an eyebrow at his answer. It sounded perfectly right to Damian.

“And what year was I born?” Tim asks.

“Nineteen eighty nine.”

“Oh, you are _so_ concussed,” Tim says. “Come on. I’ll call Batman to take you home. You’re going to need to be under observation for a while.”

He puts an arm around Damian’s waist and fires a grapple line at the building’s roof. Unlike Damian, he manages to hold on to it.

It’s nice to lean on Tim and let himself be carried upwards. It’s nice just to be close to him, even with layers of kevlar between them, but he feels safe and warm and drowsy.

“I’m drowsy,” he warns Tim.

“Okay. Just let me open the window.”

It’s a bit of a blur as they get into the apartment. Damian lets Tim guide his actions and his mind fall into a fugue state. He’s leaning on the kitchen counter, which digs into his back, and he can see the sofa where he’d much rather be, sprawled out and comfortable. Tim’s hands are soft on his face as he takes the domino off, and warm on his skin as he unbuckles Damian’s armour, and cool on his head as Tim cleans the wound Damian wasn’t aware he had.

“Talk to me, Damian,” Tim says. “Stay with me.”

“I need to pick a college,” Damian says.

“Yeah? Tell me about it. I’m sure everyone you applied to accepted you.”

Damian nods.

“Boston, Harvard, George Washington, Northwestern, University of Washington, Berkeley, Gotham.”

Tim cocks his head to one side. “I think you want stitches,” he says, “but I might leave that to Alfred. You’re leaning towards pre med?”

“Yes,” Damian says. “I don’t know if it’s feasible alongside the demands of being Robin, but there is something appealing about saving lives. At the very least, it will be useful to the family.”

“You grandfather was a doctor,” Tim says. “Bruce must be over the moon.”

Damian hasn’t talked much about his college choices with his father, but he’s caught the man staring up at the family portrait a few times with damp eyes and, more unusually, a smile.

“Gotham’s not known for its pre med track, though the medical school is one of the best in the country,” Tim says. “I know I’ve said this before, but I think you should get out of the city. Dick left the city for college.”

“And dropped out,” Damian says. “He thinks I should leave, too.”

There’s more than Robin keeping him here. He can’t imagine spending four years away from Tim, but now Tim’s in front of him the idea of admitting it is so much harder. What if Tim doesn’t feel the same? What if Tim is happy to let Damian go?

“Wherever you go,” Tim says, “I’m happy to follow. There’s Wayne Enterprise branches in all of those cities, and most of what I do as Red is behind the scenes these days anyway. I mean, if you want me to, obviously. I don’t want to intrude, and it’s not like it’d be that different to now if we did try and make this work long distance. The dorm experience is worth having! And-”

Damian puts a finger to Tim’s lips. “I am not going anywhere without you,” he says firmly. “You are mine.”

Tim relaxes.

“I wasn’t sure,” he says. “I mean, it’d be very different. It’s a side of our relationship we haven’t really had a chance to explore, and I don’t want to move too fast.” He scrubs a hand through his hair. “Or maybe it isn’t? We’re doing this whole thing backwards, and I don’t have a frame of reference for what ‘too soon’ is. We’re already married, but we’ve never been on a date.”

“We should do that,” Damian says. “We have the summer to spend together before college to grow accustomed to interacting as a couple.”

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Tim says. “Honestly, it’s really good just to have you here now, even if it took a bad head injury to impair your judgement enough to bring you here.” He runs his thumb across Damian’s cheekbone. “How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts, and I’m a little nauseous,” Damian says. “I’m still drowsy.”

“Hmm. I’d offer you a coffee, but I’m wary of anything that shrinks or dilates your blood vessels, under the circumstances. How does a glass of ice water sound?”

“I’d like that,” Damian says. “Can we sit down?”

“Promise not to fall asleep?”

Damian nods. His head feels loose on his neck and there’s a bowling ball sliding around inside his skull, carrying a headache from back to front.

“So,” Tim says, as Damian walks gingerly across the apartment. “There’s something I should probably tell you. This isn’t the best time, but it’s something to talk about in person. I just hope you remember it in the morning.”

Damian settles himself onto the sofa, back to the arm, and draws his knees up. The smile Tim gives him is worth all the headaches in the world.

Tim settles opposite him and leans forwards to offer Damian the glass of water. Damian takes it, but Tim doesn’t move back. Instead, his gaze drops, and a delicious thrill overtakes the swirling feeling in Damian’s stomach for a moment before Tim reaches out and starts unlacing Damian’s boots.

Oh, right.

“Sorry,” Damian says. “I’m getting the upholstery dirty.”

“The cleaner comes tomorrow,” Tim says. “I just want you to be comfortable.”

“What did you want to tell me?”

“Bernard knows about us,” Tim says. “I didn’t mean him to find out, but apparently I’m ‘not subtle’.” Damian’s eyes track Tim’s fingers as he does air quotes. “He’s not going to tell anyone, I promise. But he and I brainstormed some ideas for making this more palatable to the general public, a way to approach it when it comes to the press.”

Damian doesn’t like the idea of Tim spending time with Dowd, his former lover, though Dowd was clear about his lack of ongoing sexual interest in Tim. More fool him, in Damian’s opinion.

“I confided in Wilkes,” Damian admits.

“I thought you might have done. He sent me all your pictures from prom.” Tim eases Damian’s right boot off, having finally unlaced it. Damian loves his boots, but he’s fallen asleep in them more times than he can count because of how long they take to unlace. “I wish I could have been there.”

“I wish I hadn’t had to be,” Damian says. “What did Dowd propose?”

“We need to play up the old rivalry. Drake Industries versus Wayne Enterprises. Like one of those eighties soap operas where everyone has big hair and shoulder pads and throws martinis at each other and this is a cultural reference point you don’t have, isn’t it?” Tim grins at him. “I’ve written a virus that’s currently working its way through various news corporation networks to remove any references to my adoption or us as brothers. People have short memories. If we take control of the narrative now, we can control the way people think of us.”

Something about the way he says that reminds Damian of grandfather.

“Apart from the virus, how do we achieve this? Where do the shoulder pads come in?”

“In suits,” Tim says. “Expensive clothing. We don’t have to dress like it’s the eighties, of course, we just have to tap into the stories people tell themselves about rich people. Sharp suits, ostentatious wealth, passion and chemistry. We should arrange a kind of public clash, something to do with Wayne Enterprises, where we both posture and swagger and stand too close to each other and everyone thinks ‘they should just fuck it out’. And then Bruce sends us on a business trip together, somewhere exotic, to force us to work together, only there’s a mix up at the hotel and there’s only one room available, and-”

“Have you been reading Quinzel’s novels?” Damian asks sceptically. “No five star resort would force us to share a room if two were booked. They would find alternative accommodation for one of us.”

“Jason has all of them,” Tim says. “They’re… junk food for the brain. And useful, right now!”

“I notice you’re partaking in junk food for the diet, as well. I have provided you with nutritionally balanced sustenance that’s quick and easy to prepare.”

“And I’ve been eating it,” Tim defends himself as he pulls off Damian’s left boot. “But _for some reason_ I’ve been feeling especially lonely and at a loose end recently, and indulging in a bit of comfort eating.”

“You should be comforted that you have me to look after you, even when I cannot physically be here.” Damian eyes Tim’s physique.

“I finished my final piece of coursework, and I wanted to treat myself,” Tim says. “And I am comforted that you look after me. But this is the sort of thing I worry about, if we’re going to be living together come fall: we’re very different people with very different lifestyles. You’re neat and organised and meticulous about every aspect of your life. I’m…” 

Tim shrugs and gestures at the apartment. There’s mud tracked across the floor and onto the sofa from Damian’s boots. Coffee cups cluster on the kitchen counters. DVDs lie around the TV, out of their boxes. It’s a perfectly normal level of mess, nothing rotting but not everything in its place, and if Damian weren’t concussed he’d have swept around the room like a very tidy hurricane.

“Brown calls you a trash panda,” Damian says. He’d objected at the time - his husband was neither garbage nor an evolutionary dead end with minimal libido and gastrointestinal issues - but it turns out Brown was comparing her former paramour to a raccoon, and Damian had to admit it was somewhat apt. Fiercely intelligent, a particular kind of sociable, able to see treasure in any trash pile, and dark rings under his eyes.

“That’s me,” Tim says. “And you’re, I don’t know, some kind of golden lemur. I really appreciate the way you look after me, but you can’t control every aspect of my life. If I want to drink so much zesti my pee smells of it, you have to trust I’m making the right choice for me.”

Damian wrinkles his nose.

“Sometimes,” Tim says, “the right choice and the healthy choice aren’t the same thing. This,” he gestures between them, “isn’t healthy. But it’s _right_.”

Tim’s comm crackles to life.

“Red Robin, report. What is Robin’s status?”

Damian stares at Tim. He isn’t ready to go back to the manor yet. They need more time to talk. They need more time together.

He misses Turkey suddenly. Misses being locked in a room together, just the two of them, for three days. Watching Tim sleep, knowing Tim was watching him. Talking. Whole conversations from beginning to end, hashing out everything they needed to and still being able to make small talk after. There’s so much Damian wants to say to Tim now, and it’s all bottled up by the need for secrecy. He just wants to _communicate_ with his husband.

“Red receiving. R is definitely concussed and will need stitches to maintain his boyish good looks.” 

Damian scowls, which makes the contusion on his head throb painfully.

“Can he make it to the batmobile unaided?”

Tim eyes Damian’s boots on the floor next to the sofa, and the several yards of laces.

“To be honest, B, you might as well come and get him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say, it tickles me that Damian's actually been around longer than Tim!


	18. Interlude: Father and Sons

Bruce looks around his son’s apartment. It’s impressively tidy for somewhere Tim lives, and he wonders if this is Tim’s real home, or a safe house disguised as an apartment in order to throw people off the scent. It’s the kind of subterfuge Tim excels at.

Both boys are on the sofa. Damian is awake and alert, but his focus is a little off.

“Coffee, Bruce?” Tim offers.

He wants to take his injured bird home and fuss over him as much as Damian ever allows, but he knows not to take it for granted that Tim is extending a hand of friendship right now. It’s more than he deserves.

“Thank you.”

Tim stands up and Damian swivels on the sofa, making space for Bruce to sit in the middle. He pushes the cowl back and sits down.

“How are you?” he asks Damian.

“Concussed,” Damian says. “I think it’s mild. I have been reasonably coherent, haven’t I, Drake?”

“Pretty much,” Tim replies from the kitchen area. “His reflexes are sloppy and his vision isn’t tracking quite right, plus headache and nausea. Some confusion and recall issues.”

Bruce pulls a pen torch from his utility belt and shines it in Damian’s eyes. “That sounds bad.”

Tim brings two mugs of coffee over. Bruce’s has a splash of milk in it. “I’m concerned,” he says, “which is why i called you, but it’s true that he’s been pretty coherent since then. Coherent enough to complain about my taste in- oh shit.” Tim swivels to stare at a brown paper bag on the kitchen counter. “I never put the ice cream away.”

“How long has it been out?”

Tim screws up his nose. “Long enough to get sloppy, and if I put it in the freezer now it’ll end up full of crystals. Want some phish food, Bruce?”

Alfred only allows homemade ice cream in the manor. He has his own churn for it.

“Absolutely,” Bruce says.

“How’s the nausea, Damian?” Tim asks, returning to the kitchen to get some bowls out. “Think you can manage some ice cream?”

“It makes me sick when I’m not concussed,” Damian says sourly. Bruce hopes that his boys have been getting along. The friendship that’s been building between them for two years looks stable from the outside, but Bruce fears a return to the bad old days. He could never figure out what to say to either of them that didn’t make everything worse.

“Candy hot dog?” Tim asks, waving the artificial treat.

“Don’t tease your brother,” Bruce says.

Tim’s face changes. Bruce watches his expression closely. It’s not hurt at being rebuked, or wounded pride. Something more like wariness, maybe a touch of disappointment.

Bruce has put his foot in it again, somehow.

Tim drops a cold bowl in Bruce’s lap and sits down next to him, curling his feet underneath him. He’s wearing the Red Robin costume, the version with the cowl, but as far as Bruce knows Tim hasn’t been patrolling while he’s focused on finishing his college work.

“How is college? Happy it’s nearly over, or will you miss the student life?”

Tim shrugs. “Hard to say. I’ve enjoyed the flexibility, but it would have been nice to have more scope to work at my own pace. It was better than high school, at least, and I can’t say I’m entirely looking forward to the life of a 9 to 5 salary man.”

Bruce snorts. “It’s hardly 9 to 5 at WE. You can manage your own time there however you wish, and I appreciate that you’re willing to spend as much time physically in the office as you do, but the advantage of cultivating a more laid back attitude is the freedom to pursue… outside interests.”

“Tt. If Drake were to change his work ethic now it would be considerably out of character and attract attention. He will have to wait for a natural moment, like after he collapses from exhaustion, to explain a ‘more laid back attitude’.” Damian ladles enough sarcasm into the phrase to skewer both Bruce and Tim and their respective work ethics.

“Damian was telling me about his college options earlier,” Tim says, changing the subject with the kind of desperation usually reserved for matrons at society galas. The boy can beandip like a pro, which is his mother’s influence. “Pre med. I bet you’re proud, Bruce.”

Guilt strikes Bruce in the gut, which is suspects is Tim’s intention. Of course he’s proud of Damian - he and Alfred have spent long hours talking about how thrilled Thomas Wayne would be to have his legacy continued like this - but he’s proud of Tim, too, even if he only understands half of what Tim’s classes have been. He should have done something to convey it earlier, given him the hand on the shoulder that he uses to express his affection towards his sons. If he says something now, Tim will think it’s insincere.

He hates how much he second guesses Tim. He hates how much Tim makes him second guess himself.

“It’s a challenge I am sure he will meet.” Damian’s shoulder is in line with Bruce’s these days (when did his tiny bird get so big?) so Bruce pats him on the leg. “He’s got some big colleges begging for him. Alfred has been fielding calls from multiple admissions offices.”

“They want your money,” Damian says.

“They want you.” Tim leans around Bruce to address Damian. “But we’re talking about what _you_ want.”

“He won’t express a preference,” Bruce says. He’s been trying for weeks to get Damian to make a decision. His youngest is rarely paralysed like this, and it worries Bruce. Damian came to him behaving like an adult in a child’s body, and Bruce allowed himself to be fooled by Damian’s rationality and breadth of knowledge, but now, on the cusp of true adulthood, Bruce feels like he’s failed to prepare his son for the real challenges that lie ahead. 

He’s not sure he’s prepared himself. Soon his nest will be empty.

“You dropped in on Yale for a bit, didn’t you Bruce? Want him to be an Ivy Leaguer?”

“It’s useful to have an Ivy League college on your CV, but overall the most important thing is the culture fit. You both know I never stayed anywhere long enough to get a degree, but I found some colleges suited me better than others. I liked Yale. Cambridge was beautiful, but a bit quiet for me. I enjoyed the Sorbonne a lot, though some of that was presenting a novelty to the other students.” Bruce smiles at the memories.

“Alfred likes George Washington,” Damian says. “They offer a year in England at Oxford or UCL.”

“That would be a great opportunity.” Tim fiddles with his now empty ice cream bowl. “A whole year in England.”

“I don’t think Oxford would work for me. Despite it’s dreaming spires I don’t there’s much scope for grappling around as Robin.”

“That shouldn’t be your main priority.”

“Father talks about culture fit. Being Robin is part of that, for me.”

"Don't limit your options by proximity to Gotham or San Francisco just because you're already established in them. There are ways to take yourself to Seattle and keep Robin in Gotham, if needs be."

Bruce lets the boys bicker across him. That’s another part of adulthood he’s failed to prepare Damian for. He’s not going to take Robin away from him until he’s ready, though. He’s not making that mistake _again_.

The ice cream is sickly and too soupy, and it numbs his tongue for all the complex flavours of the coffee. He should be patrolling. At the very least he should be taking Damian home.

The city has been quieter recently. A couple of high profile corruption cases have finally gained enough traction to get to court, Arkham is retaining staff for more than two weeks at a time, and three homeless shelters have recently been the recipients of large anonymous grants, the sources of which Batman is currently tracing. Bruce can give himself permission to spend thirty minutes with his children. His children who are growing up and away from him at a frankly terrifying rate, graduating college and high school and spreading their wings. He’s so proud sometimes he can barely hold it in, but he’s also dreading every approaching milestone that takes them further away from him.

Damian yawns and leans against his shoulder. Bruce wants to hold him close and tell him not to go, not to Washington or or San Francisco or Seattle or Chicago or Cambridge, Massachusetts and definitely not to Oxford, England. Bruce isn’t ready to let him go yet. He isn’t ready to go back to a house that’s just him and Alfred after years of filling it to the brim.

“Damian?” Tim reaches around Bruce to poke him. “Bruce, he’s falling asleep. You should get him back to the manor so Alfred can check over him.”

“We’ll go via Leslie’s clinic,” Bruce says. “Someone has anonymously donated an MRI.”

“Phew! That’s some donation.”

“Yes. Thank you for the ice cream and coffee.”

Tim looks down at his own mug. “Thank you for staying for it,” he says quietly.

“Are you coming to Damian’s graduation?” Bruce stands up, pulling the cowl back on. Damian climbs to his feet unsteadily, though how much is the concussion and how much is sleepiness is hard to say. “Can you grab his boots?”

Tim does, and collects Damian’s domino mask and cape from the kitchen as well.

“Yes, I plan to,” he says. “Who else is coming?”

“Everyone, I hope. Even Cass.”

Tim smiles. “I haven’t seen her in ages.”

“They’ll all come to yours, as well,” Bruce says. “Do you know what date you’re graduating yet?”

“It won’t be until at least a couple of weeks after Damian. I imagine people will need to get back to their lives.”

“You’re the first member of the family to graduate college since Alfred,” Bruce says. “Everyone is very proud.”

A light blush stains the apples of Tim’s cheeks. He doesn’t like being the centre of attention, Bruce knows, but he craves positive reinforcement. Bruce will ensure he gets just as much of it as Damian.

Damian follows his father to the window, one hand tangled in Bruce’s cape. Tim presses Damian’s domino mask back over his eyes. The glue has lost some of its stickiness, but it’ll hold well enough to get him to Leslie’s.

“That’ll probably be the next time I see you,” Tim addresses Damian. “Look after yourself, baby bat. Better than you have been.”

“Yourself, equally,” Damian replies.

Bruce scoops Damian up in his arms. He’s heavy and his size makes it awkward, but Damian is Bruce’s baby and he will never be too big for Bruce to carry.

Tim pulls his own cowl back on and follows them down to the Batmobile. He puts Damian’s boots and cape on the backseat.

There’s an awkward moment where neither man knows precisely what sort of goodbye is appropriate under the circumstances, and then Batman grunts and Red Robin nods, and that seems to settle it.

Bruce allows himself a small smile as he drives away. It’s such a relief to know that things are going to be okay between him and Tim. The young man is right that the adoption papers aren’t the important thing in their relationship. Bruce will still fix things, of course he will, but Tim knows Bruce is his father even without them. Things are going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If your response to this interlude isn't, at least once, "Oh, Bruce!" then I have failed at my job.


	19. In which Tim has to admit to a minor oversight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments on the last chapter (well, thank you for all the lovely comments in general, but I'm tickled that my note seems to have prompted even more than usual!). This chapter: more porn! And all this secrecy is starting to take its toll on our boys.

So there’s been this little red dot next to Ancient History 101 since way back in Tim’s freshman year whenever he’s logged into the college intranet to check for his latest grades. He didn’t think it was worth worrying about too much; his graded work had come to 97% (and, yes, he did consider contesting that final three per cent because it wasn’t his fault the timeline changed while writing that paper). In the back of his mind, if he really prods his memory, he thinks he was aware that the red dot was for attendance, or lack thereof, but he’d been pretty certain it was while he was dead, so they couldn’t really hold it against him.

The archaeology courses were meant to be his easy A, his netflixer, his sleeper class (very literally). He’d travelled the world with his parents, visiting ancient sites. Three separate lectures centred on artefacts in Gotham Museum that his parents had personally donated. There was no possible way he could flunk them. 

Even if the lectures had been at 8 in the morning.

Even if he hadn’t been in the best place, mental healthwise, and hadn’t always managed to make himself go and listen to his dad being misquoted at him on the history of Syria.

Even if he’d died in the middle of it.

Only, when he digs out his obituary and the date of his funeral to get it all straightened out so he can graduate in June, it turns out he’d actually died during the next semester, in the middle of Intro to Antiquities and Abstract Algebra, which does explain why he’d barely scraped a pass in the latter (and also why he doesn’t have a red dot against the former, which he has no memory of attending whatsoever).

He’s flunked Ancient History 101. Despite his grade, he’s flunked it.

He is one credit short of graduating.

Tim stares at his transcript.

Damian is going to kill him.

#

Damian stand in front of his mirror, wearing only a towel. He’s expected downstairs in twenty five minutes for photographs. Frankly, he doesn’t see the point - the paparazzi have always done a thorough enough job of documenting his every appearance in formalwear, but apparently graduation, like prom, is something that needs to be recorded for posterity with an ageing camera in inferior lighting.

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, attention not on his reflection but the dresser below it. Specifically, the drawer that contains several old smartphones. Two water damaged, three cracked, one killed by a software update, and one provided by his husband.

He’s got time.

He made sure he had time.

It’s not like prom.

He reaches for the drawer.

There’s a knock on his door.

Damian scowls.

“What?”

“It’s me.”

Damian’s irritation is washed away instantly by the sound of Tim’s voice. He adjusts the towel around his waist, letting it drop an inch on his hips, and runs his fingers through his damp hair. Even if there’s no chance of persuading his husband to fuck him in the scant time before they’re expected downstairs, he can still make Tim want to.

That it’s okay for him to do so still gives him a thrill.

He opens the door. Tim stands on the other side, dressed in a light grey cotton suit with a lavender shirt. It’s much lighter than his usual clothes, and it brings a touch of lilac to his eyes. It’s brings a delicate note to the sharp steel edge of the rest of him; he’s as beautiful as the edge of a blade and Damian can’t take his eyes off his husband.

Tim’s eyes trails down Damian’s torso and his bottom lip catches between his teeth. Damian preens a little.

“Come in. I was just dressing.”

“I can see.” Tim brushes past him on the way into the room, carefully accidental and so very deliberate that Damian’s cock twitches under the towel.

Tim sits on the bed, sinking into the soft mattress, and looks up at Damian through his long lashes. Damian moves to stand in front of him, and gets hit by a bright, sharp memory of Tim’s mouth stretched red and wet around his cock. It takes all of Damian’s self control not to moan.

Something similar must be going through Tim’s mind, because he’s flushing dark red and his tongue comes out to wet his bottom lip once, twice.

“I need to tell you something,” Tim says, “and I really, really need you to put some clothes on, because you're not making it easy to form coherent sentences.”

Damian glances at the door. It’s shut, but not locked.

“We could-”

“We couldn’t. We agreed.” Tim squirms on the sheets. “Oh god, Damian, don’t tempt me.”

“I was going to… going to look at the pictures you sent,” Damian admits. “I promised myself.”

“You’re tempting me,” Tim groans. “Fuck. Did you like the phone? What’s your favourite video?”

Damian frowns, briefly confused before he realises what Tim means. “I haven’t spent much time browsing the, uh, notes app. I prefer the cat game.”

Tim digs his fingers into the mattress. Sweat is starting to bead on his brow. It’s fascinating seeing how easy it is to rile him up. Damian could watch him all day.

“Yeah?” Tim’s voice is deeper, rougher. His fly is starting to bulge outwards.

“The images are beautiful. I especially like the touches of art.” Damian reaches for one of his sketchbooks, abandoned on the bedside table, and his towel slips even lower. Damian’s hardening cock is doing most of the remaining work of keeping it up. 

He opens the sketchbook and flips through a few pages to find what he’s looking for. It’s a sketch of a hip, bone sharp, curve shaded, from several angles. It’s Tim’s hip, but instead of the press on aperture tattoo Damian has drawn a stylised bird. It’s reminiscent of the Red Robin logo, an arching curve that’s more hawk than songbird, but Damian has feathered it out into something more delicate.

“That’s beautiful,” Tim says.

“I want to…” Damian trails off, conscious that they could be overheard. He picks up his ink pen and gestures at Tim. “I want to add my own art.”

“I would be honoured.” Tim brushes his fingers over the sketch.

Damian drops to his knees between Tim’s legs, his towel finally giving up entirely and pooling around his calves. His cock brushes the crisp crease of Tim’s trousers and he pulls back, conscious of staining Tim’s outfit with precum. He still has Tim’s waistcoat from the plane hidden in his wardrobe.

He unzips Tim’s fly, but rather than release his now straining cock from his boxers, Damian pushes Tim’s shirt up and the waistband of his trousers down, revealing a thin strip of pale skin along the curve of Tim’s hip bone.

Tim groans, bending forwards and pressing his face into Damian's hair.

“We agreed,” he hisses, but toes off his dress shoe and presses his socked foot against Damian’s aching dick. They’re really nice socks, Damian notes distantly. Bamboo cotton? New, at least, and seamless, which he really appreciates as Tim traces his big toe up and down the underside of Damian’s cock.

“I was going to do this anyway,” Damian says. “Something like this.”

“I wasn’t.”

Damian smirks. “If that is your preference.”

He puts his ink pen in his mouth, slides it slowly in and out again, before gripping the lid between his teeth and popping the pen free. Tim rewards him by increasing the pressure against his cock. Damian grinds up against the sensitive sole of Tim’s foot, making him twitch.

“Tickles,” Tim says breathily, but doesn’t pull his foot away.

“This may, too,” Damian warns him, and presses the cold, fibrous tip of the pen against Tim’s hip. The back of his hand brushes against Tim’s cock as he starts to draw, but otherwise he pretends to pay Tim’s arousal no attention, though his mouth is watering with the memory of Tim’s taste. Tim whines, but stays still for him.

Tim’s skin grows goosebumps under Damian’s pen, and he’s conscious of every twitch and quiver. The solvent smell of ink wars with the scent of sex in the air, making Damian giddy. He doesn’t have time to draw the bird, not in the detail he wants, so he sketches a feather over Tim’s skin instead. When he is done, it looks lonely, so he adds another, smaller one, following the V of Tim’s muscles towards his groin. Two don’t look right on their own, so he adds a third, smaller again. He keeps adding feathers, progressively smaller, until his pen catches in Tim’s pubic hair.

Some are wing feathers, some are down, and one is a carefully drawn peacock’s eye. Damian could draw them all day, winding up and around Tim’s body, but Tim’s cock is pressing against his cheek bone and he’s thrusting against Tim’s foot.

“Damian,” Tim breathes.

“Yes?”

“I changed my mind. My plan. Stop teasing me.” Precum is leaking through Tim’s boxers, sticky against Damian’s cheek. Tim is still fully dressed, bar one shoe, and Damian is completely naked, kneeling between his feet like he has come to worship him. And, now he has Tim’s permission, he does so.

He pushes Tim’s boxers out of the way and wraps his mouth around Tim’s cock, hungry for it. The heat and weight of it is so familiar on his tongue it’s hard to believe he’s only done this twice before. The intervening months melt away, and he swallows reflexively around Tim.

The action makes Tim’s toes curl, beautiful touch against Damian’s shaft, and Damian shuffles on his knees, looking for a position and a rhythm that will let him suck and thrust at the same time. Tim shuffles closer to the edge of the bed, hooking his other leg around Damian’s shoulders and pinning him close. Damian’s hands bunch in the fabric at Tim’s hips, fingers hooked in Tim’s belt loops.

Tim groans. His hands rest on top of Damian’s head like a benediction, nails scraping across Damian’s scalp. His grip tightens suddenly and he tries to pull Damian away, but Damian clings to Tim’s hips and presses his nose to the trail of feathers over Tim’s pubes, swallowing to keep from gagging. Tim pants, tries to articulate something, but words are overtaken by his orgasm and he exhales as he comes. Damian closes his eyes and presses his tongue against the pulsing underside of Tim’s shaft and focuses on the sour-salt taste, the smell of sweat and solvent, the sounds that Tim desperately tries to muffle.

When Tim is spent and softening in his mouth when Damian finally makes himself pull back. He cants his hips against Tim’s foot and starts to thrust in earnest, conscious they don’t have long before they’re expected downstairs. Tim reaches down, but Damian doesn’t need his hands. He has Tim here, in his room. Soon he’ll have him for good, soon they won’t have to sneak around.

Damian comes against the silk-soft cotton of Tim’s sock. He coats Tim’s foot in thick ropes of cum, opalescent against the matt black fabric, a little going so far as to touch Tim’s hem. Without thinking Damian grabs Tim’s leg and brings it up to his mouth, sucking the bottom of Tim’s pants clean.

“Fuck, Damian.” Tim’s voice is thready. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” He wriggles his toes. “Leave my sock,” he says. “I want to _feel_ it.”

Damian rocks back against his heels and pushes himself up off the floor. According to the clock next to the bed, he has barely two minutes to dress himself now.

He moves quickly, wiping himself clean one of his own socks before putting it on. Tim chuckles, and Damian flashes him a quick smile. He throws on some antiperspirant and dresses efficiently, only slowing down when it comes to the tie. He stops in front of Tim, who’s tucked everything back in and shaken the creases from his clothes. If Damian concentrates, he can see a shadow of the feathers through the near-sheer lavender shirt.

Tim takes the tie from him and loops it around his neck. The ritual action is calming, and Damian’s heart flutters in his chest as Tim nimble knots the length of fabric.

Tim sighs, running his fingers over Damian’s shirt.

“You wanted to tell me something,” Damian says.

Tim squeezes his eyes shut. “I did,” he said. “I’ve done this all the wrong way round. You’re going to be even more angry.”

Damian stills. “Angry?”

“I’m not graduating next month. I fucked up.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t have enough credits to graduate. I thought it was an administrative error, but it’s not, it’s mine. I need to take another class.” Tim swallows. “I’m graduating in December.”

That’s seven months.

Another seven months of waiting.

Seven months of silence.

Seven months in which Tim could change his mind.

Damian puts his hands over Tim’s and squeezes, holding Tim tight, trying to ground himself. He can’t panic. He’s graduating today.

“Damian?”

“I already accepted Berkeley, but I could probably transfer to Gotham,” Damian says, mind starting to move again.

“What? No!” Tim stares at him. “Of course you’re still going to California, Damian.”

“But it’s the other side of the country.”

“I can still come with you,” Tim says. “Gotham have a bunch of online courses. I’ll have that credit in my pocket before the month is out.”

Damian blinks. “Oh.”

“You think I haven’t spent the last week working through every possible option and outcome?” Tim asks, a small smile gracing his lips. “I know this isn’t plan A, and we need to talk through the implications together, but I wanted to tell you first, before I have to face everyone else and admit I fucked up.”

There was a time when Tim wouldn’t have been able to admit a mistake to Damian without hearing about it for the rest of his life - and, okay, Damian is probably going to bring this up a couple of times when it’s less fraught and immediate and doesn’t make him feel like throwing up - and it’s a measure of how far they’ve come that Tim _wants_ to come to him first.

Damian just wishes it hadn't taken Tim a week to do it.

“I appreciate it,” Damian says.

“I love you,” Tim says. “I’m really, really sorry about this, and I need you to understand I didn’t do it at you. Freshman year wasn’t a good time for me, and I want yours to be much better. I don’t want you to stress about this.”

“We’re still telling everyone this summer,” Damian says. “The plan was contingent on _me_ passing through the appropriate rites of passage, not you.”

Uncertainty flickers across Tim’s face, and doubt flares in Damian’s stomach.

“You’re right,” Tim says. “You’re interning at WE over the summer, aren’t you? We’ll be able to spend time together without arousing suspicion and figure out our next steps.”

Doubt curdles into something even less pleasant. Damian is tired of not arousing suspicion. He’s ready for people to be suspicious, to start laying out the clues for them to follow, so that when the truth comes out it doesn’t blindside them. Secrecy is exhausting.

Damian inhales, counts to five, and exhales.

“The wait has been interminable,” Damian says honestly. “I don’t have your patience. I’d rather take the risk and tell them now.”

Tim flinches. “While you’re still under Bruce’s roof? Damian-”

“Damian? Tim?” Dick’s voice echoes up the stairs.

Just once Damian would like to have a conversation about their relationship from beginning to end, to not have to stop for fear of discovery. It’s another item on the long list of things they could do if it wasn’t a secret.

“Can we keep it to one big admission at a time?” Tim asks. “Bruce has been telling everyone I’m graduating college in a couple of weeks. Let me survive that conversation first.”

Damian lets go of Tim’s hands, and Tim lets go of Damian’s shirts, his knuckles popping as he straightens them out. 

Damian nods, not willing to trust his voice.

If his patience is starting to become displaced, his grandfather’s will be well and truly lost by now. And if there’s no good way to tell their family they’re married, hearing it from Ra’s is definitely the epitome of bad ways.


	20. Interlude: Family gathering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a little freaked out by the fact multiple people have suggested Tim could just buy his way into graduating. What is up with your college system, America?

Bruce looks around the room full of family. Usually they’re only all together like this for a funeral. It’s incredible to be here for something to celebrate.

Alfred is beside him, smiling. Tim went up to fetch Damian almost half an hour ago, and they’re going to be late if they don’t leave soon, but Bruce is willing to give them five more minutes. He’s not entirely sure what’s going on with his younger two, but ever since the kidnapping they’ve been awkward around each other. He knows they haven’t told him the whole truth of what happened there, and since Nyssa was on the opposite side of the world at the time it wouldn’t be hard to poke more holes in their tissue of lies.

But he’s trying not to be that sort of father any more. Not after Alfred went through with him, step by step, where he went wrong trying to give Damian The Talk. He wants his children to feel able to come to him with their problems, not sit back and wait for him to blunder in. Which is why he’s not saying anything to Dick about why he and Barbara are on opposite sides of the room pointedly not meeting each other’s eyes, and why he’s not trying to corner Jason to ask why he’s got a Tamaranian tattoo with an arrow through it peeking up over the collar of his shirt.

He glances at Alfred, and Alfred gives him an approving look. Even after all these years, Alfred’s praise is still the best route to a good day.

Jason sidles over to him, carrying a glass of coke that Bruce suspects has already been spiked. At least Jason isn’t driving later; he’s riding with Cass and Steph.

“Talia’s been in touch,” he says.

“She would have been welcome to come,” Bruce says. He can tell Damian is upset she’s not here from the way his son tenses up at any mention of assassins or his family. His heart breaks for the boy.

“I don’t think she knows,” Jason says. “I guess graduation in the league is a bit of a different beast. She wanted to know what Damian told you about the last time Tim got kidnapped a few months back.”

“Very little,” Bruce says. “Something clearly happened, which has affected Tim and Damian’s relationship, but they aren’t willing to talk about it.”

“So you’ve spied and researched and analysed and-” Jason circles his glass in the air. “And what happened was?”

“I’m trying to respect their privacy. You know Tim can be… skittish, about his boundaries.”

Jason snorts. “You’re scared of driving him straight into Ra’s arms, aren’t you? With everything else, it can’t be hard for the old dude to put up a convincing argument.”

Bruce’s jaw aches with resisting the urge to grind his teeth. The worst case scenario he’s come up with so far is Ra’s interest in Tim taking a sexual turn. Tim's careful negotiation of anything Ra's related, including the adoption, and Damian's protectiveness and possessiveness could both be outcomes of such a scenario, though Bruce desperately hopes he's wrong.

“B?”

Bruce forces himself to relax. “Did Talia say anything else?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she popped up in Gotham over the summer. She’s angry about something.”

Bruce reassures himself that if she thought she was about to get a new stepfather, she’d probably be more than angry.

He sighs. “I’m sure she’ll make her presence known when she’s good and ready.”

Jason shakes his head and takes a long swallow of coke, ice cubes chinking together in the glass. “Remind me to make tracks to Star City when she does,” he says.

“Did Lian like the Gotham Knights mitt?”

“Roy liked Olly’s expression when she opened it, I can tell you that,” Jason says. “She wants to see a game here.” He pauses, swirling the last dregs of his coke in the glass. It’s mostly ice now. “We were thinking of taking her to a game in a couple of weeks, now they’re back on the up, if you want to join us.” He empties his glass, and doesn't give Bruce a chance to answer before plowing on with, “I’m studying Hard Times next semester. Need your help getting that copy back off Alfred.”

“Even The Batman doesn’t take cases he can’t solve,” Bruce says. “I’m not going up against Alfred.”

“Quitter.”

They share a small smile.

Tim leads Damian into the room. Tim’s walking a little awkwardly, and Bruce mentally catalogues the movement in case Tim’s injured and needs benching later.

Alfred assembles everyone for photographs. Tim tries to step in a couple of times, with opinions about the lighting and camera settings that Alfred roundly ignores, until Damian grabs his brother by the back of his jacket and pulls him back into line. Tim complies with better humour than Bruce expects, and he has to remind himself that his sons are adults now, their relationship maturing into a mutual respect that allows for a bit of roughhousing and banter without dissolving into the old fights.

The clock in the hall chimes, and they’re going to be late and everyone starts tidying away drinks and putting on coats, bustling around until Tim, the sole still point in the room, clears his throat.

Bruce is thrown back to last year, sitting in this same room before patrol, and Tim’s announcement. 

Oh god, he’s dating Ra’s. He’s dating Ra’s and he’s going to tell everyone. His son is dating an eight hundred year old terrorist.

Alfred hasn’t given him any guidance on how to be supportive in _this_ scenario.

“So, um,” Tim says. “Just to get this out there, now. Over with. Before we go to Damian’s graduation.” His eyes flick to Damian and away again. “I’m not graduating this summer.”

Bruce has never been so relieved in his life.

“I don’t have enough credits, so I’m graduating in December, probably. It’s not a big deal.”

“Of course it’s not,” Dick says. “You’re still the only one of us - I mean, the only Wayne,” he corrects, glancing guiltily at Barbara and Steph, “to go to college properly. I dropped out in my first year. You work at your own pace, little red.”

Jason stiffens beside Bruce, but doesn’t say anything.

“What he means,” Steph says, shooting daggers at Dick, “is whenever you graduate, we’ll all be there, because it _is_ a big deal.”

“Yes, graduating is a big deal, but it’s not, like, the biggest. If he doesn’t graduate at all we’ll all still be proud of him,” Dick objects.

“I’m not saying we’re not! But you’re making it sounds like we don’t care if he graduates or not-”

“Well, I don’t and maybe we shouldn’t, but-”

“We’re going to celebrate when he does because-”

“Enough,” Bruce says, holding up a hand. “This is Damian’s day, and we need to leave.”

Everyone starts filing out of the room. Damian sticks close to Tim, and as the room empties Cass sidles up to take up position on Tim’s other side.

Bruce and Alfred are last out, behind the trio, and Bruce overhears Cass’s soft voice.

“What they mean,” she says, “is when the time comes we will come, and we will celebrate you. You will not be imposing on us by graduating.”

Tim sighs. “Everyone’s so scattered, and Damian will be at college too, by then. I can’t just demand you all drop everything and come back to Gotham because I was too disorganised to pick up an extra class.”

“I’ll demand it,” Bruce says from behind him. Now it’s sunk in, the idea that he’ll be able to pressure everyone into coming back in half a year’s time sits well with him. It helps dispel some of the empty nest feelings that keep creeping up on him. If the timing works, they might all stay for Christmas, too.

“He won’t need to,” Cass says. “We will be here because we want to be.” She squeezes her brother’s arm. “It is our pleasure, like being here today.”

A full house, that's all Bruce wants. Everyone here because they want to be.


	21. In which they're right under Bruce's nose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really a note for the end of the last chapter, but my personal headcanon is that Bruce attended Steph's graduation (with Tim and Cass, but they sat separately because he was being really embarrassingly into it) and the press went crazy trying to figure out if he had another illegitimate kid they didn't know about.
> 
> Anyway, notes for this chapter! Skipping over actual graduation and we're into the world of work! This is not the best paced chapter, but let's pretend the stop-start jerkiness is symbolic of the stuttering relationship, and not because I got distracted writing office sex.

Tim stares through the one way glass at the gaggle of young adults trailing after Damian. Bruce hasn’t, has he?

He’s put Damian in charge of the interns.

Damian leads them one way down the corridor, to Contracts. Then the other way, to HR. Finally, he stops them outside Tim’s office. He scowls at Tam until she waves them in.

“Drake leads on research and development.” Damian runs his eyes over the whole office without meeting Tim’s gaze. “When you are on rotation here, Fox will lead on most of _your_ development.”

One of the interns laughs, but quickly titters herself into silence when she realises Damian hadn’t intended it as a joke. By Tim’s calculation, Damian’s been dragging them around the building for the better part of two hours now, which does not bode well for her people reading skills.

Tim fully intends to make Tam deal with her.

“The actual work takes place in the labs on the fourth and fifth floors. None of you have clearance for the fifth floor. Where you get permission to enter the fourth floor, you will be expected to leave all personal belongings in the lockers outside. No cell phones in the labs. No food or drink in the labs. No outerwear in the labs.”

Tim had spent the morning in the fifth floor lab. He used the molecular microwave laser to reheat his coffee while he caught up with instagram on his cell (Bart’s mission to rehabilitate Thaddeus currently involves taken him to every Disney park in the world, Kon’s brand new leather jacket has been destroyed by lava, and Cassie’s speech at the UN has gone viral - Tim is super proud of all of them, and also pretty jealous). He'd been wearing a lab coat over his suit, at least, though that was mainly because he'd already spilt coffee on his suit jacket. He's really trying to pull off Bernard's suggested power dressing, but it takes so much effort to keep it up.

Tim’s pulled from his reverie by a loud gurgle.

For a horrifying moment he thinks it might be his own stomach - he skipped breakfast - but the interns part around one of their own like he’s a newly announced leper. Even Giggles realises this is serious.

The boy’s stomach growls again, an impressively loud noise for someone so skinny. He wraps his arms around himself, but it doesn’t make a difference.

“I skipped breakfast,” he says quietly.

Damian’s upper lip lifts in a sneer.

“And why did you skip breakfast? Were you hoping to entertain us with this symphony?”

“I was running late, and-”

“You arrived ten minutes early.”

The boy seems surprised Damian noticed. He straightens up a little.

“Yes! I was first here.”

“So you weren’t late.”

“Well, no, but that’s because I prioritised-”

“You prioritised ingratiating yourself over your own health and productivity. We are not impressed by brown nosing at Wayne Enterprises.” Damian narrows his eyes. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We have a canteen that provides for a wide variety of diets and budgets.”

Tim snorts.

Damian rounds on him. “You have an observation you wish to share?”

“You were the one complaining about the prevalence of bacon in every meal option not two weeks ago,” Tim reminds him. “And it’s not cheap, either.”

“You haven’t eaten breakfast either,” Damian states flatly, folding his arms. “I don’t see how father expects you to set an example to potential future employees when you are incapable of even the most basic self care.”

Damian casts his gaze across the interns again. “I expect all of you to arrive each morning fully prepared to face the day. This includes ensuring you are sufficiently fed and hydrated, that you have had a minimum of six hours sleep the night before, and that you are not drunk, hungover, or suffering the after effects of any kind of legal or illegal mind altering substance.” He pauses. “If you are involved in an attack by Joker, Poison Ivy or the Scarecrow, or any other chemistry based rogue that emerges, you will be expected to call in sick. Wayne Enterprises will cover any related medical expenses.”

Damian is making that up, but it’s not a bad policy, especially for interns. Last year one girl had taken a shortcut through Robinson Park and the whole building had to be quarantined until the effects wore off. Luckily, like Hungry, she was a bit keen for her own good and arrived before most of the staff.

Every year he promises himself he’ll learn the interns names, and every year he manages to get one or two before they all disappear back to their various high schools and colleges and post graduate programs.

He should be on a post graduate program right now.

“While you are in this department,” Damian continues, gesturing at Tim’s office without unfolding his arms, “you will liaise with Fox to ensure that _certain employees_ are following the same rules.”

Tim can’t hide a smile at that.

Damian’s eyes flick to his mouth and dart away again immediately. He doesn’t stop scowling, but something changes around his eyes. Tim’s heart skips a beat.

Working together is going to be dangerous. It’s hard to hold back the flush of excitement. It’s all well and good agreeing to bicker and snap at each other to fake a no longer existing rivalry, but the heat behind the words is so palpably different. Part of his mind is already calculating ways to steal moments together in the guise of legitimate meetings, the best seats at conference tables to brush past each other, places they can meet each other’s eyes without worrying about anyone reading anything into the glances. They’re going to be so close for so many hours of the day.

They’re going to be right under Bruce’s nose.

#

When Tim arrives for work a couple of days later, there’s a bowl of granola on his desk, and the whisper of feet in the corridor that suggests it’s only just been placed there.

“Damian’s interns,” Tam says, blowing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “He’s very serious about this breakfast thing, apparently.”

The milk in the bowl is cold enough that condensation starts to form on the outside. Tim considers moving it off the report he’d been working on, but decides to leave it there. Reprinting the report is the sort of thing interns are for.

“Was it one of ours?” he asks.

“Gemma? Yes.” Gemma is Giggles, which means Tim actually has a hope in hell of remembering her name. She talks like every sentence is a question and laughs instead of smiling, but she’s also halfway through a degree in nano-engineering and has already picked up two potentially ruinous typos proofreading schematics.

“Have her reprint the Staedtler Outcomes report, will you? It’s damp.”

Tam nods. She’s leaning in his doorway, tablet in one hand.

Tim eats his granola while Tam goes through the day’s itinerary. It’s going to be a busy one, and he appreciates Damian’s choice of breakfast for him. If he had to guess, though, he’d say Tam doesn’t. Whenever she thinks he’s not looking she gets this little frown line between her eyes, and the concern on her face isn’t completely masked by her businesslike demeanour.

She doesn’t say anything, though, and Tim isn’t going to introduce the subject.

He doesn’t know how he’d explain Damian’s possessiveness without raising her suspicions. No, worse than that, without raising red flags. And maybe that’s a red flag in itself, because you ought to be able to tell people about the sweet things someone does for you - like have interns bring you breakfast - without it sounding like he’s being controlling. Damian likes being controlled too, knows he needs it, and they’re carving out this space around each other where they control and are controlled, like explosions in a combustion engine.

To say “he is possessive, I like being possessed” requires a whole history of his childhood and upbringing he doesn’t have the energy to dwell on. Even in his own head, it sounds like “I’m vulnerable, he is preying on that” if he doesn’t get it precisely right. It's not even a big leap to “Damian is vulnerable, Tim is preying on that” because he knows Damian’s insecurities intimately. Shame. Praise. Pride, and the relinquishing of it. The right reward system and Damian is putty in Tim’s hands. It’s intoxicating to have someone so willing to be solely his.

To have and to hold, Tim thinks. To be had, to be owned, to be possessed. To be held in place, to be held down, to be held up. They have each other and they hold each other.

He finishes the granola.

#

Father sold him on the internship programme by telling him it was a chance to hone his networking skills. Not the kind of networking Bruce Wayne does. A spy network.

Father is also clearly hoping it will help his people skills. Which Damian thinks are perfectly sufficient for his needs, but there’s no harm in adding new tools to his armoury.

Gemma brings him the water damaged copy of the Staedtler Outcomes report. It should be shredded, but Tim left that to her, and she, like the good minion she is, has brought it to Damian. Of course, he could just log into the intranet and find the digital copy himself, but he wants to know what kind of notes Tim’s made on it.

Staedtler are one of the old Drake Industries clients. There’s still a few of them scattered around the files, and some interesting staff contracts for the remaining individuals that came over when Bruce bought out the company. Tim’s been reaching out to more and more of these old clients recently, re-establishing old contracts and resurrecting old projects.

Tim’s notes are interesting, too. There’s some extra facts and figures, for if he gets asked questions, but there’s also a scribbled reminder that reads “Tennis - Sharapova - clay court” and another that says “mother’s fertility idol”. Tim has a personal connection to these clients, and he’s going to milk it.

This is the sort of thing father wants him to learn working with the interns. To store not just a catalogue of their strengths and weaknesses, but to find socially acceptable things in common with them to form bonds and forge trust. Gemma has a cat. Tobias plays violin. Shaleeza speaks Arabic. Damian needs to create inside jokes with each of them that he will be able to call back to, even decades from now, to make them chose him over other options. Already, they are developing a so called ‘inside joke’ with each other about breakfast. They need to learn that there’s no such thing a private emails on a company owned server, and their little memes are subject to Damian’s scrutiny.

He can’t call them out on it, not yet, without losing their trust. He can, however, admit it’s a little funny. [Orange juice does indeed grow on trees](https://me.me/i/dewey-go-easy-on-that-orange-juice-that-stuf-doesnt-3319140).

#

“To reiterate Drake’s point, LexCorp’s history with Cadmus make them the wrong partner for his project.”

“They’re in direct competition with Star Labs, as Damian makes clear, which puts our joint ventures there at risk.”

“If we want to pursue this project-”

“-and we would be idiots not to-”

“-the only plausible way to do it is through the WayneTech subsidiary.”

“It will require additional investment, but if we set it up under the old Drake Industries banner we can split the liability-”

“-reducing insurance premiums by a significant margin-”

“-and the potential long term returns significantly outweigh the initial outlay.”

This is _fun_ , Tim thinks. Tag-teaming with Damian against the board, riffing off each other, finishing each other’s sentences. They’re completely in sync. Even Bruce looks impressed.

They carry the day, of course they do. Bruce gives them both a shoulder clasp on his way out of the conference room.

Tim grins at Damian, and gets a small smile in return.

“We’re unstoppable together,” Tim says. “Everyone sees it.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Like this? Of course. This is what we want, isn’t it? People taking us seriously together. People seeing our potential as a pair. It’s a step in the right direction.”

Damian sighs. “Small steps.”

“They’re getting bigger.”

There’s a cupboard at the back of the boardroom, stocked with creamer for the coffee machine, spare permanent markers for the flipchart, extra cables for the projector, and some old IT equipment that should have been recycled a decade ago. One of the dot-matrix printers is a hollow replica with a spare Batsuit inside it (an old grey one, with yellow highlights - one of Tim’s favourite versions of the suit), but the cupboard is unmonitored. No CCTV, no pressure sensors, no bugs, nothing.

It’s a better place to have this conversation than the boardroom, which is swept for bugs regularly in the name of preventing corporate espionage but also exists as a testing ground for how well the latest Bat surveillance tools resist detection.

“We should tidy the, um, pens away,” Tim says

“We brought them from your lab,” Damian says, frowning.

Tim jerks his head towards the cupboard.

Damian stares at the closed door.

“Oh for- Take this, Damian.” Tim hands him a stack of notepaper. He grabs a couple of pens from the table and leads the way.

The cupboard is cramped with clutter, but Tim pulls the door shut behind them.

“This is hardly _subtle_.”

“Yes, well, the only person likely to check is Bruce, and we can tell him I was showing you the batsuit stashed here.”

“Or I was showing you the Robin suit in the ceiling tiles,” Damian says.

“I have a case for us to work on together,” Tim says. “Artefacts looted from the Cairo Museum during the Arab Spring have been turning up in Gotham. Selina’s gathering them up, but the preliminary work I’ve done on the supply chain suggests something bigger is being financed with these sales. I’ve been working on my Arabic, but I don’t think _Ana Bahebak_ is going to get me far with Egyptian smugglers.”

Damian inhales sharply.

“I don’t like the idea of you saying that to anyone who’s not me,” Damian says. Heat burns behind his eyes and Tim feels it burn through him, lighting his skin on fire. Damian’s hands come up to grip Tim’s arms. “Not even in jest.”

“Ana bahebak,” Tim says again.

Damian pulls him flush against his body. Tim’s arms are pinned against his sides and all he can move is his head, so he does so, tilting his face up for a searing kiss.

This, the way Damian kisses him, it makes Tim melt. He squirms in Damian’s grip, wanting to get his arms around his lover, but Damian doesn’t let him go. Tim bites down on Damian’s bottom lip, eliciting a groan from his husband. He pushes up on his toes to gain a little leverage and thrusts his tongue into Damian’s mouth. Damian’s tongue wars with his briefly, but then he submits completely, letting Tim fuck his tongue in and out of Damian’s lips.

Damian’s body goes lax, slumping back against the wall of the cupboard. Tim, still on tiptoes, unbalances and falls against him. Damian lets go of Tim’s arms to bring both hands up to Tim’s head, digging his fingers into Tim’s neatly tied back hair. Tim feels the elastic holding it back snap and Damian whimpers.

Tim uses his newly freed hands to reach for Damian’s belt. Damian’s straining erection is large enough it actually gets in Tim’s way, and Damian whines as the belt buckle bumps against it.

Tim breaks the kiss. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Damian pushes Tim’s pants down without undoing them, Tim’s half hard cock bobbing free. His legs are pinned together and he wouldn’t describe himself as comfortable, but Damian shoves his arm between their bodies and starts working Tim up to full hardness with one hand while his other yanks Tim’s hair and Tim stops caring completely.

Damian pulls Tim’s head back into position for another wet kiss. Tim shoves his hands into Damian’s boxers, digging his fingers into the muscles of Damian’s buttocks and kneading. Damian bucks against him, his hand squeezing reflexively on Tim’s cock.

Tim presses sloppy kisses down the side of Damian’s throat. He sighs wetly when he gets to Damian’s collar, which is starched and sharp and drawing a red line of its own against the tender flesh of Damian’s neck. Tim wishes he was wearing lipstick so he could leave a stain there, even if that would be a terrible idea.

Damian bends Tim’s head back again until his eyes are facing the ceiling, and tongues the underside of Tim’s jaw. Tim whimpers and writhes against him.

“I want to mark you,” Damian growls. “I want them all to _see_.”

Tim forgets why that would be a bad idea, and lets go of Damian’s butt with both hands to scrabble at his tie. He wrenches the knot out of the way and pops the top two buttons, giving Damian clear access down to his collarbone.

“I want to fuck you,” Damian says. “I want to do it on the conference table. Claim it. Claim you. In front of those big windows, the whole of Gotham.”

Tim’s hips jerk helplessly, precum leaking from his throbbing cock.

“The whole world should know how much I care for you. No one would ever doubt you are wholly mine.”

Damian bites down on the curve of Tim’s neck, teeth sharp against the delicate skin.

“Baby bat,” Tim manages to say, but coherence is rapidly leaving him. Damian loves him. He is loved by Damian.

Damian sucks a hickey right over the curve of Tim’s clavicle, a hot pulse of pleasure/pain in the rupturing capillaries.

With the last of his higher brain function Tim gropes in Damian’s jacket pocket for his handkerchief, and shoves it into Damian’s hand as his cock starts to pulse. He tangles his fingers into Damian lapels and lets himself go.

He’s glad Damian’s got a hand in his hair, keeping his head from falling too far back. He’s limp in Damian’s arms, still squirming with as Damian wrings the last of his orgasm out of him.

There are lips on his again, and Tim opens his mouth automatically, letting Damian’s tongue lick along the line of his teeth. The kiss is gentle and sweet, even though Damian’s dick is still hard against Tim’s hip.

Tim fumbles now-clumsy fingers back into Damian’s underwear. He presses against Damian, one hand in the front of Damian’s boxers and the other in the back. He slides his fingers down Damian’s sweat-slick cleft and finds his tight hole. Damian rocks back against his teasing fingers and sucks hard on Tim’s tongue.

Tim circles Damian’s pucker with one finger and jerks him steadily with his own hand, reminded slightly of the old “pat head and rub stomach” coordination exercises. Who knew _those_ skills could be put to such use? Damian rocks back and forth, fucking up into Tim’s closed fist and grinding down on his crooked finger. Both of Tim’s hands are constrained by Damian’s underwear and Damian seems to like the extra pressure.

He’s still clutching the cum-soaked handkerchief in one hand, in such a tight fist he’s wringing the damp out of it.

“Come for me, baby bat,” Tim murmurs against Damian’s mouth. “Come in your boxers for me. Carry it with you for the rest of the day.”

Damian whimpers against Tim’s lips.

Tim had made it an hour with a soggy sock before Cass's suspicious looks and his own discomfort had got to him, and he'd rinsed it out in one of the bathrooms at Damian' school. Damian doesn't know that, though.

“I want to know you’re wet and sticky because of me. I want you to think of me with every step.”

Damian mouths against Tim’s cheek, too desperate and close to orgasm to find Tim’s lips for another kiss. He’s shaking, right on the edge, keening and needy and it’s all for Tim.

“I want them to see you, so uncomfortable, and wonder why. I want them to smell sex on you. I want them to think about how long we’ve spent packing up the boardroom and I want them to burn with jealousy and curiosity because I get you and they don’t.”

Damian spasms in Tim’s hand and unloads into his boxer briefs, soaking the material instantly. He quivers against Tim, aftershocks only making him wetter. The whole cupboard smells of sweat and cum and Tim is giddy with it.

“Fuck, Damian.”

“Nnnn.” Damian rubs his jaw against Tim’s like a cat. “I want to. In your office. On your desk.”

“Fuck yes.”

“I want everyone to know.”

“Soon, baby bat. Soon.”

Damian pushes himself away from the wall and Tim falls back onto the soles of his feet, suddenly aware of the burning in his calves from being on tiptoes so long, even if Damian had been taking most of his weight.

Damian looks him in the eye.

“I can’t wait,” Damian says. “You keep saying soon, but I can’t wait.” He swallows visibly. “I don’t know how long Ra’s will wait, either.”

Tim’s legs are weak without Damian holding him up, and he leans heavily on the shelves behind him. He takes a moment to pull his pants back up, tucking himself back it while he tried to get his thoughts in order. Damian sounds pained and a little shy, like Tim’s forcing him to even bring this up, and it stings after what they just did to think Damian doesn’t have faith that Tim remembers about Ra’s looming over them.

“He said a year to get legally married.”

“It’s been a quarter of that already.”

What if they did keep it a secret? Would that really be so bad? Tim feels in control when it’s just the two of them. Nothing can go wrong if there’s no one else to interfere. The fewer variables the better, isn’t that just what they were telling the board about the Staedtler contract? Secret is safe. That’s why they have secret identities.

“We should get out of the cupboard before someone comes looking,” Tim says. “This isn’t how we want people to find out.”

Damian stares at him for a long minute, jade eyes unreadable.

“You need to fix your collar,” he says eventually.

He wipes the inside of his boxers clean with the handkerchief before closing his fly and rebuckling his belt. The sodden square of fabric makes Tim feel tight chested.

“We’ll tell them soon,” Tim says quietly, but the word has lost its meaning from overuse.


	22. In which Damian has another very long day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another awkwardly paced WE chapter!

It’s just past six in the morning, and Damian is wide awake, whole body thrumming with adrenaline. There’s blood drying on his knuckles, a bruise forming on his hip, and Oracle and Huntress both commented on how well he and Tim were working together.

“We impressed Helena!” Tim beams at him. “Do you know how hard it is to impress her? She’s amazing. Have you ever worked with her? In my early days as Robin I had the opportunity, a couple of times. I-”

“Followed her around like a lovesick puppy?” Damian asks, amused.

“Exactly! Do you think she believed we hadn’t practised that move? I don’t think she believed it.”

“Which? When you rolled across my back? You ended up half tangled in my cape. I can’t imagine _that_ looked rehearsed.”

“Not that bit, I suppose, but it didn’t stop me from taking out those three smugglers in one move, and your cape came in handy for the fourth.” Tim’s bouncing on his toes as he walks over the rooftop. The glowing W that throws his shadow behind him, across Wayne Tower’s roof. Damian’s rarely seen him looking so pleased with himself. “And then you came in with that flying kick right over my head!”

“We work well together,” Damian says. “If I had attempted that with any other family member I doubt I’d have managed to clear them.”

“Ooh, short jokes. Haven’t had that from you in a while.”

“I’m merely acknowledging that your size is convenient.” Damian darts sideways, behind Tim, and grabs him around the waist, lifting the smaller vigilante off the ground. “You are very portable.”

Tim gasps and squirms in his grip.

Damian holds Tim flush against his chest. The wind catches his cape and it billows around them. It occurs to Damian that from most angles Tim wouldn’t even be visible right now.

“Damian-”

Damian knows what’s coming next: we can’t. And he’s not stupid, but he can’t stand hearing that again, so he wraps his hand over Tim’s mouth.

“The sun is rising,” Damian says into the shell of Tim’s ear. “The only safehouse in reasonable distance is the penthouse below us, and even so, it is unlikely we’ll have time to catch even a short nap before we are expected in the office. We will have to find something else to occupy our time and energise us for the day ahead.”

Tim goes still. His toes are digging into the concrete, giving him just enough purchase to push his body back against Damian’s. He is the perfect height to be bent over a desk and fucked, and Damian hasn’t stopped picturing it since the conference room.

“I promised I’d show you the dawn up here,” Tim says.

Damian lowers Tim to the roof. That is… more romantic than he was thinking.

Tim turns in the circle of Damian’s arms. The wind wraps them both in Damian’s cape, forming an intimate space. Tim raises his face for a kiss, bringing his head into the shroud of Damian’s hood. He licks at the corner of Damian’s mouth, working his way between Damian’s lips and deepening the kiss. Damian tightens his arms around Tim, lifting him back onto his toes. Sometimes his own height still surprises him, but Tim’s has been constant as a yardstick. He fits perfectly against Damian now; if Damian still believed in grand designs (beyond his grandfather’s schemes) he’d think they were made for each other, and this is the final proof.

Tim breaks the kiss, bringing Damian back to the real world.

“Do you have a sketchpad in the penthouse?” Tim asks.

Damian looks up. The eastern edge of the city is starting to glow, as the sun’s light refracts through the ocean beyond and the rising mist takes on a pink hue.

He rests his chin on Tim’s head.

“I am happy to just watch,” Damian says.

Tim shifts his weight in Damian’s arms, twisting to look at the imminent dawn. He’s unsettled against Damian’s chest.

“You want your camera?”

Tim nods.

“I dreamt about a picture of you up here,” he says. “It… was a weird dream, if I’m honest, but I don’t have nearly as many pictures of you as I’d like.”

“I want to hear about your dreams,” Damian says. He usually only remembers his nightmares. He lets Tim out of the circle of his arms. “Get your camera. I’ll make the dawn wait.”

Tim squeezes his hand and darts across the roof to the hidden entrance.

He’s gone for just under three minutes, and Damian spends them willing the sky to stay dark.

He’s alerted to Tim’s return by the click of a shutter behind him.

“Should I pose?” Damian asks.

“Everyone does,” Tim says, “even when they don’t know I’m there. Have you seen my albums?”

“I’ve seen the ones at the manor,” Damian says, though he isn’t sure he should admit to it. 

He found the albums snooping in Tim’s room when he was ten. He’s glad it was then, before puberty; the sight of Dick and Jason’s bare thighs flashing in the night would have ripped through his sexual awakening and sent his fragile libido into hiding for life. But guilt dogs the memory now because he’d been going through Tim’s possessions with malicious intent, and the only thing that had stopped him from destroying Tim’s cherished album was the fear of confronting its implications. Tim would have been nine when Dick was swinging across the city in his short pants, nine when he figured out father’s identity. At ten, Damian couldn’t countenance that.

“Dick swears he never knew I was there, and I know Bruce didn’t because he was genuinely surprised when I confronted him. Jason claims he knew, but-” Tim shrugs. “For all his cigarettes and leather and man of the people schtick, I swear he’s the most dramatic of all of us. Long lost theatre kid trying to get out.”

Damian hears the shutter go again. He resists the urge to throw his shoulders back and stand straighter.

Between the skyscrapers the glimpses of ocean suddenly light up as the sun peaks over the horizon, lighting a gold path towards the city. Damian’s breath catches in his chest.

“Who else do you think is looking at this?” he asks.

“Night shift workers. Bus drivers, nurses, dockworkers, beat cops. People with crying babies. Insomniacs.” Tim moves to stand beside him and slips an arm around Damian’s waist, tucking back in under his cape. “Rarely us. All the good little vigilantes are tucked up in bed right now.”

There’s no one else around. No bugs beyond what’s built into the suits, and he trusts Tim to wipe those. They could do anything they wanted. He could press Tim up against the W of Wayne and fuck him into the neon. He could push Tim to his knees and have his mouth. He could pin Tim to the wall at the edge of the roof, drop to his knees, and reduce Tim to a bleating, writhing mess as he ate his husband out. They could see the whole city and the whole city would see them.

Or they could talk. No one is going to interrupt them up here. He could say everything to Tim that’s burning in his chest, keeping him awake at night and putting an extra edge on his blows. He could unburden his soul about the secrecy and if he finds the right words maybe Tim will understand. Maybe they’ll start moving forwards together. Maybe he’ll stop feeling like a dirty little secret.

Or maybe Tim won’t understand.

Secrecy is important to Tim, and he’s clearly getting something from their current arrangement. The conference room sex had a certain thrill to it, and when they can only snatch moments together each one is precious. They’re both bringing their best selves to every encounter.

Like this, with the sunlight bouncing back and forth between the plate glass buildings of the financial district, picking out the curves and spires of gothic old Gotham, setting the clockface on Oracle’s clocktower afire like a second sun. This is a perfect moment, and he’s not going to ruin it by bringing up all the dark and ugly things that are starting to take root in his subconscious. He needs to remember this dawn the way Tim wants him to see it.

Tim yawns, jaw cracking. He presses tighter against Damian, nuzzling his head against Damian’s shoulder.

“Get Tam to put an urgent meeting in my diary for conference room four,” Damian says. “Mid morning.”

“Ah, the nap room.”

“Indeed.”

It has huge, deep sofas, under stuffed and over used, with piles of cushions to make up for their deficiencies. It was originally used for one to ones and small meetings, but everyone knows it’s where you go if you want a brief lie down. Bruce has been caught sleeping in there more than once.

Damian waits for Tim to say they can’t, not together, but he just hums contentedly and leans into Damian. The sky around them continues to brighten, mist rising thickly from the city as the dew evaporates. They could be the only people in the world.

Tim holds up the camera with one hand.

“Selfie?”

Damian pushes his hood back and tilts his head against Tim’s. It feels awkward and unnatural as the shutter clicks, but then Tim turns and presses his lips to Damian’s cheek, and he can’t stop a small, shy smile forming. The camera keeps clicking as Damian angles his head to meet Tim’s kiss, and the dawn’s rays throw shadows around them.

#

Working together is dangerous. Tam Fox is a stark reminder of that.

Tim doesn’t make their ‘urgent meeting’. Damian lay down in the dark for a while, waiting, but after fifteen minutes he knew he wasn’t going to sleep without knowing precisely why his husband had failed to join him.

He finds Tim in his office, a septuple espresso from SunDollar in his hand, signing something Tam holds out to him.

“Oh, sorry, Damian! Something came up. We’ll just have to rearrange for the end of the day.”

Damian chooses to glare at the coffee rather than his husband. It is a poor substitute for the sleep Tim ought to be getting, and it’s a slap in the face to the coffee Damian provides him with.

Damian spins on his heel and returns to conference room four, but sleep is a phantom now. Every time he closes his eyes he sees Tam Fox’s wary expression. She wars with him over his beloved’s time, and his beloved hasn’t even told her why Damian ought to have priority.

Tim compartmentalises his life, drawing sharp lines between Tim Drake and Red Robin. Both are equally real, but never the twain shall meet. Tam knows about both halves, but made a choice to only stand on one side of it. Damian follows his father’s example and made Damian Wayne into the disguise Robin wears. He stands opposite her. Between them, his husband, Janus-faced, Tim for Tam and Red for Robin. Wayne Enterprises is her domain, and she arranges his life accordingly.

Damian rounds up his minions and corrals them in the canteen, standing over them to ensure they all order dishes appropriate to the afternoon itinerary. He lets them think his glare is to keep them in line.

Inside he’s a boiling, roiling mess of black jealousy. Insecurity swallows everything else like a tar pit, hot and sticky and sucking down everything Damian wants to remember about this morning.

Instead, all he can think about is Tam Fox.

Tam and Lynx.

Ariana and Steph.

Zoanne and Cassie.

Tim’s dating history often involves more than one person at once. Usually one person in his civilian persona, and another in the mask.

In fact, Damian’s not sure if Tim’s had any significant others he hasn’t cheated on.

Damian manages to hold it together for the rest of the day, though he gets terser and terser with the interns. When it comes to assigning duties, he picks two women for Tim’s department, both young and shy, the opposite of the kind of women then usually succeed in taking advantage of Tim. At least, they seem shy to him, but maybe he’s just frightened them.

He can be very, very frightening.

He’s very frightened.

The darkness is a rising tide inside him.

What if Tim is just like this? Polyamorous? He hasn’t intimated such to Damian, but then, Tim didn’t reveal he was gay to Damian either. Dowd let that slip.

His former lover.

Damian isn’t polyamorous. Even if he had a handle on his possessiveness, he doesn’t think he’d ever be able to handle more than one intimate relationship at a time. His devotion is laser-focused, sharper and brighter and hotter and more intense for its narrow beam. His love could cut through steel. His love could set fire to air. His love could target missiles.

His love is a destructive force, and he knows it.

It’s five o’clock on the dot, and he dismisses his interns by barking “leave” at them. He turns his back on them, slamming open and closed drawers in the filing cabinet. When he turns back there’s still one young woman standing there.

“Ji? It’s five.”

“I wanted to ask about the Employee Assistance Programme,” the young woman says, adjusting her glasses.

“It’s after five.”

“I didn’t want to ask in front of the others.”

Damian opens his mouth to ask what precisely she needs assistance with, before realising that’s probably overreaching. If she doesn’t want to ask in front of her fellow interns, it’s probably not something he should pressure her to disclose.

See, father, he can pass himself off as someone who understands professional norms.

“We have one,” Damian says. He’s reasonably confident they do, anyway.

When he doesn’t expand, Ji pushes her glasses up her nose again, and says, “How do I access it?”

Before he can task her to figure it out for herself, like a proactive intern, the meeting room door opens silently.

Tim freezes when he sees Damian isn’t alone. Ji hasn’t noticed, her attention still on Damian, and Tim starts to back out again.

“Drake!” Damian beckons him in before he can retreat. “The EAP. I don’t have the details to hand.”

Ji’s head snaps around, eyes owlish behind her spectacles.

Tim steps into the meeting room and closes the door behind him.

“Have you been set up on the intranet yet?” Tim asks.

Damian nods. “All of the new log ins have been activated and tested.”

“If you search, there’s a page that tells you how to access the various services. The digital and telephone based services are all twenty four hours, face to face is usually eight to seven, depending on what you’re looking for. You can book anything from taxis to therapists by raising a ticket. Landlord vetting, that’s a new one. Also eye tests!” Tim seems to realise he’s rambling, but he doesn’t know how to stop. “It’s all confidential, of course. We get aggregated data on the most used services, but nothing that can be linked to any specific employees. Or interns.”

Tim must like the service, Damian realises. He has that slightly fervent look in his eyes Damian has come to associate with visual media with “Star” in the title.

“Just log into the intranet, and if it’s not on the front page click ‘services’. You’ll be prompted for your employee number to log in to it, to confirm you’re a current employee, but once you’re through the to EAP portal no further data is collected that ties your personal details to your role here. I encrypted it myself.”

Ji’s eyes widen.

“No, no, that doesn’t mean I can see it,” Tim says. “Precisely the opposite.”

Damian holds a hand up before Tim can launch into an explanation. 

“The system is secure,” Damian says. “You can access it via the intranet. This building is open until eight pm tonight, so you are welcome to do so now from the intern pod on the second floor. I believe I have scared everyone else off, so you should have privacy.”

Ji nods.

“Thank you, Mr Wayne. Mr Drake.”

“Go,” Damian says, “before he starts babbling at you again.”

Tim holds the door open for her.

Once they’re alone, Damian asks, “So, you’ve used it? You’re really that confident they wouldn’t share your data with father?”

“They couldn’t,” Tim says. “You haven’t?”

“What for?” Damian asks. Tim is his husband. This isn’t overreaching. He really hopes Tim doesn’t think it’s overreaching.

“Accessing therapy without it appearing on Bruce’s insurance, mostly. Also used them to vet my current landlord, and I got a discount on my contents insurance.”

Tim crosses the room but stops just short of Damian. Even so, his proximity is reassuring. Hearing him talk about therapy as though it’s as commonplace as renting an apartment gives Damian pause. Is it? Sometimes he isn’t clear on what’s uncommon and what’s just not talked about.

“Therapy?”

“I was scared, at first,” Tim says. “I wasn’t sure what I could say to a therapist without giving away more than I was comfortable with. I wasn’t sure if I could trust a therapist enough to make it worthwhile. I wasn’t sure with my luck that I wouldn’t get the next Harlequin or Dr Strange, to be honest.”

“Tt.”

“But they put my in touch with someone, and I found I could talk to them, and that most of what I wanted to talk about wasn’t going to put anyone else’s secrets at risk.” Or his own, the silent addendum. “And it helped.” Tim spreads his hands. “I was on SSRIs for a while, but with our schedules - with that _Turkish Venture Capitalist_ \- I couldn’t take them with any regularity and the side effects of skipping days meant that it made more sense to come off them and manage my depression through other methods.”

Damian wonders if Tim has ever told anyone else this.

“And now life is kittens and rainbows,” Tim says.

“Oh?”

“Not really. But they gave me a lot of useful tools for dealing with my inner demons, and setting boundaries with other people’s. I still have bad days. I have very bad days, sometimes. But I am a lot better at recognising when they’re coming, and sometimes I even manage to divert them. Even if I don’t, that feeling of control helps me manage myself.”

“Do you-” he knows he shouldn’t ask, he knows it, he shouldn't “-you ever talk about me?”

Tim frowns. “Damian-”

“Was it the therapist who told you to cut me out of your life, originally?”

“Da-”

“What have you said about me? Do they think you should still be keeping me at arm’s length? What have they said about all the secrecy?”

Tim stops trying to interrupt him, and Damian stops trying to talk over him.

Silence reigns for almost a minute. It’s a wet, choking silence, like the eye of a storm.

“Damian?”

“Do you think they’d be able to help me?” Damian asks.

“Yes.” Tim swallows, his adam’s apple visibly bobbing. “I think you’d see a lot of benefits.”

#

The next morning, Damian logs into the EAP portal, and answers a selection of questions about what he’s hoping to get out of therapy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hate stories that suggest therapy is a superior alternative to drugs, that there's moral high ground in battling depression unmedicated. However, for superheroes, any kind of medication that needs taking on a consistent schedule probably isn't going to work - the batgirls are almost certainly using implants or IUDs for the same reasons - and coming off anti-depressants abruptly can have incredibly dangerous side effects, so at this point in time Tim has, after discussion with his therapist and doctor, decided they're not the best solution for him right now.


	23. In which all work and no play makes Tim and Damian the opposite of dull boys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably have put a warning for the therapy elements in the last chapter. It comes up again here. If you're not a vigilante in a secret marriage with your adopted sibling, don't lie to your therapist, 'kay? Our boys are not modelling healthy behaviour!
> 
> Also, new tags for more sex! And the angst ramps up another notch.

Tim’s not sleeping well. Every time he lies down his stomach start churning and his heart starts racing. He’s trying to hold too many things in his head at once and when he closes his eyes they start swimming together, until he has to get up again and check and double check he’s still on top of things.

_Have they said anything where Bruce could hear? Has he shown any sign of having heard?_

_Is Ra’s preparing to make a move? Has he kept his promises?_

_What is the press saying about them today? Have they called him Drake-Wayne recently?_

_What if Colin lets it slip? What if Bernard tells someone to get his first byline?_

_Has anyone noticed what he’s doing with the old Drake Industries contracts?_

_Does Tam suspect? Does Dick suspect? Does Steph suspect? Does Cass suspect? Does Jason suspect? Does Alfred suspect? Duke and Jon and Kon and Bart and Cassie and Helena and Selina and Talia and Barbara and Dinah and why do they know so many people? Who let Bruce adopt so damn many kids?_

The worst part is watching Damian fall apart. The guilt is a constant burn in the back of his mind and every now and then it flares up as white hot resentment. He’s working so hard to get his ducks in a row and he hasn’t got time to hold Damian together as well. He’s doing it for Damian; the least his husband could do is be patient. His passive aggressive comments about “we can’t” and “soon” just slow Tim down. He’s suffocating Tim with granola and interns and going through Tim’s paperwork. How is Tim meant to get into the groove if he has to keep stopping for food and sleep? Why can’t Damian just trust him? Why can’t he just give control over to Tim and trust his judgement on when to reveal themselves to the world?

If Damian keeps this up is there going to be anything worth revealing?

And then he feels guilty about resenting Damian, like a cold wave, and everything flips over and he’s drowning in guilt instead. Damian is clinging to the hope Tim knows what he’s doing but he doesn’t, not really. He’s just stringing Damian along for his own selfish ends. He’s hurting Damian, and what’s the point in making all these plans when the healthy thing to do would be end it anyway? Release Damian so he can be with someone who doesn’t want to keep him a secret.

Damian’s therapist will tell him soon enough that this isn’t a healthy relationship. Tim’s lying to his.

So it’s six in the morning and he’s in a 24 hour sex shop in the Bowery dressed as Alvin Draper, because he can’t sleep and his marriage is falling apart before they’ve even had a first date and he needs to prove to Damian that it’s worth holding on just a little longer.

He needs to be good to his baby bat, to prove to himself he still deserves the younger man. He needs to give Damian a treat. Something to thank him for waiting, to make this final furlong worth running, to bribe him into another few weeks’ silence. Months, at most. Every time he gets those damn ducks in that damn row another one paddles up that he has to insert into the line up.

He wrenches his mind away from that. He needs to take a break from planning and do a little… scheming, instead. Something fun to arrange, a chance to take advantage of how intimately he knows his baby bat. All work and no play, as they say.

He slaps a credit card down on the counter.

#

Tim waves Damian into the office as his guests leave.

Damian holds the door open and lets the men pass before sliding past them. He’s carrying a plate of couscous salad he’s jealously guarded all the way from the canteen, and he holds it above their heads to make sure none of them bump into it. Tam had messaged him to say Tim’s meeting was overrunning, and Damian glares at the retreating backs of the investors for daring to monopolise his husband’s time.

“Lunch?” Tim asks, eyebrows raised in surprise. “It’s nearly three.”

“And you haven’t eaten in almost seven hours.” Damian puts the plate down with a little too much force on Tim’s desk. “It is light and nutritious and should see you through to this evening without impeding your appetite for dinner.”

“It’s not been seven hours,” Tim says. “I had a banana after this morning’s briefing. You know that; you gave it to me.”

“And now I am giving you this.” Damian puts a hand on Tim’s shoulder and firmly guides him down into his seat.

“I have another meeting. It’s already started.”

“The operations board? Tam is attending with Ji. You have forty seven minutes before your next agenda item.” Damian pulls a fork from his inside jacket pocket. “Eat.”

Tim stops putting up a token resistance and settles himself into the chair, wriggling his hips in a manner reminiscent of sexual anticipation.

Damian gives himself a mental slap. Tim is eating happily, and Damian needs to get a handle on his lust. Tim’s movements are entirely non-sexual, the little moans of happiness a perfectly mundane way of expressing pleasure at taste and texture. The way he slowly slides the tines of the fork over his bottom lip is just a way of catching every grain of couscous.

The way he winks at Damian is just…

“You’re doing this on purpose,” Damian accuses, eyes narrowing.

Tim runs his tongue up the side of the fork.

“You’re pleased with yourself. Productive meeting?”

Tim laughs. “Very. Don’t you just love the buzz you get when people play into your hands? I feel like I’ve made some real progress today.”

“Towards what?”

Tim taps the side of his nose. “All in good time, ba-” He stops himself before he calls Damian ‘baby bat’. They need a work appropriate diminutive. “-Tahaa”.

“Your chef?”

Tim gives him a one shoulder shrug and chases the last roasted vegetables around the dish. He still has an impish smile.

“It turns out Gotham U offers Arabic, so I’m taking it for my final credit.”

“It makes me happy to hear you speak my tongue.”

“Your tongue makes me happy, too.”

Damian groans. “You’re doing this on purpose,” he repeats. “And then you’re going to say ‘we can’t’ and I have to spend the rest of the day thinking about everything we can’t do.”

“The camera is on a loop. The bugs are jammed.”

“What? Why?”

“Corporate counter-espionage.” Tim pauses. “Damian?”

“Yes?”

“Lock the door, Damian.”

Damian looks around. “Tim, your walls are glass.”

“It’s one way.”

Damian moves with assassin speed and agility, locking the door and returning to Tim’s desk while Tim is still getting to his feet.

“Do you want to do the desk thing?” Tim asks.

“The desk thing?”

Tim moves the plate and his laptop to the top of a filing cabinet. Damian raises an eyebrow; he’s going to need to get a maid for Tim’s office, too. It’s not fair for the office cleaners to deal with clutter as well as cleanliness.

“You seriously don’t know the desk thing?” Tim asks. “It’s a cultural touchstone of office romances. The passionate desk sweep. Look-” he pulls his phone up and taps a shortcut to tvtropes.org. Damian puts his hand over the top of Tim’s, completely covering the device in his palm.

“Just show me,” he says.

Tim considers the piles of paperwork, empty mugs, stationary, office supplies and computer accessories.

“I’ve always wanted to do this.”

With one arm, he sweeps the whole desk clear.

Damian’s jaw drops. One of the mugs breaks as it hits the floor, and the keyboard clatters alarmingly. Tim’s eyes are bright and he’s grinning manically. He grabs Damian’s tie and pulls him over, pushing him onto the now empty desk.

Damian grabs the lapels of Tim’s jacket and pulls him down as well. Damian’s back hits the desk and Tim lands heavily on top of him, knocking the wind out of him. Tim’s mouth crashes down on Damian’s and the kiss is bruising.

“You wanted to do this, didn’t you? Do it in front of the whole office.” Tim’s voice is husky. His hands are working Damian’s shirt out of his trousers.

Damian turns his head to stare through the glass. Three of the accounts team are hurrying along the corridor outside, engrossed in conversation. They have no idea what’s happening metres away.

He’s always enjoyed watching people who can’t see him. To some extent all the bats do, but Damian desperately hopes no one else in the family likes watching people like this.

“I want to ride you.” Tim pulls on Damian’s belt. “I’ve been thinking about it for hours. I couldn’t stand up for most of that meeting.”

“How did you know I’d come?”

“You’re predictable, baby bat. You weren’t going to let me go hungry.”

Tim pushes Damian further up the desk and climbs on top of him, sitting on Damian’s thighs. He reaches for Damian’s fly.

Damian surges up and kisses Tim, refusing to be pushed around. The suddenness of Tim’s assault still has his head spinning and he needs a minute to decide if this is something he really wants, or if he just wants Tim. He wraps a large hand around the back of Tim’s head and holds him still, uses his tongue to force Tim’s jaw open and hums into Tim’s mouth.

Tim squirms in Damian’s lap, hips rocking. His hands keep moving, unable to settle. One’s in Damian’s hair and the other on his fly, then he gives up on the fly and both hands go to Damian’s waist, then he’s reaching for Damian’s shoulders and trying to push him back down, but Damian isn’t letting him.

Tim grumbles into the kiss, nipping at Damian’s lip. Damian grins against Tim’s mouth.

“We haven’t got all afternoon,” Tim mutters.

Damian considers. Tim has gone to some lengths to plan this, and he’s done it because Damian’s expressed an interest in it. Damian’s got meetings of his own he ought to be attending, though he suspects if he checked his calendar now they’d all have been conveniently rescheduled. Tim always covers all his bases; he makes Damian feel like part of something bigger when he takes control. This Tim, this smug, cocky, controlling Tim makes Damian feel safe in a way his husband hasn’t for a while.

Damian relaxes back onto the desk.

Tim follows him down with kisses made wet by his open mouthed smile. Damian moans.

“Hush, baby bat. The walls are one way glass, not soundproofed. Gotta use your indoor voice.”

Well, that adds an extra element to the whole encounter.

Damian lets his head fall back over the edge of the desk and watches an assistant hurry down the corridor outside with a cardboard tray of coffee cups and a phone pinned between his shoulder and his ear.

Tim’s hands are at his waist, opening his fly and pulling Damian’s hardening cock free. Damian keeps his eyes on the view outside the office and focuses on breathing through his nose. Tim’s hand is firm on his shaft, working up and down until Damian is ready to start fucking up into his grip.

Then there’s an entirely new sensation and Damian’s head snaps back up.

“A condom?” He remembers to keep his voice low, but it catches in his throat. “We’ve never used one before.”

Should they have? Why does Tim have condoms in his office?

His breath is coming in fast pants, and it’s not because he’s close to coming.

Tim spreads a calming hand over Damian’s chest.

“We don’t have time for a lot of prep or a lot of clean up,” Tim says. “I want to focus on the fun stuff. Condoms don’t eliminate all of that, but it’ll be easier to make it to the bathroom down the hall without your cum running down my leg.”

Oh. Oh. Tim meant it when he said he was going to ride Damian. They’re actually doing this.

Damian manages a smile. His heart’s still racing, but it’s a heady mix of nerves and anticipation now.

“Is this okay, baby bat? You want to do this?”

“For months,” Damian says.

“Mmm.” Tim purrs, unbuttoning his own fly. “You’re so good and patient, baby bat. Don’t think I don’t appreciate that. I want to reward you.”

Tim pushes his pants down over his hips, and he’s wearing nothing underneath. The fabric bunches just under the curve of his buttocks, pulled taught by the spread of Tim’s legs, and he repositions himself so his calves are clamped around Damian’s waist, knees in his ribs, and leans back so Damian’s rubberclad cock fits between his cheeks.

Damian reaches for his bare flesh, thumbs in the v of Tim’s hips and fingers curving around to his well muscled glutes. Tim opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, then closes it again, that impish smile returning.

He’s got another surprise for Damian.

Tim’s cock stands proud and flushed against his robin egg blue shirt. Damian’s mouth falls open, and he tries to pull Tim close so he can taste him again. His hands slide around Tim’s hips, stroking, exploring, teasing. He wants Tim’s cock in his mouth and his fingers inside Tim. He still has vivid memories of Tim telling him to finger himself. He wants to put that knowledge to good use.

Damian wets his bottom lip with his tongue. A shadow crosses the room as people pass outside the glass walls, completely oblivious.

“Do we have lube?” Damian asks.

Tim nods. He squirms, and produces a small tube from his pants pocket. It’s crushed almost in half and pinkish gel is leaking around the cap. A familiar smell suffuses the air.

“Pomegranate?”

Tim grins. “I saw it and I had to have it. Don’t slick your fingers up yet, though.”

“You want me to start dry?” Damian frowns.

“I want you to start,” Tim says. “I told you we don’t have much time, so I… came prepared.”

Damian runs a finger down Tim’s cleft, and just as he’s approaching Tim’s hole he hits something else instead. It’s hard and smooth and Damian’s fingers skid over it.

The only thing that comes to mind is a glass doorknob.

“What-”

Tim reaches a hand back and guides Damian’s hand to grip it.

Tim takes a deep breath, exhales, and together they pull the device out.

It’s a glass butt plug, smokey black with a ripple of red glass running through the middle of it. It curves sensually, glossy and smooth, and it’s warm with the heat of Tim’s body. It looks like something that belongs on a mantelpiece between a couple of candlesticks.

Damian turns it in his hand, watching the way the lube clinging to it makes it shine under the fluorescent office lights.

“I bought it this morning,” Tim says. “I had it in that whole meeting. Every time I moved, every time I reached for a document or stood up to shake a hand, I felt it inside me.” He blushes. “I’ve never bought anything like this before. I was going to get something bigger, something closer to your size, but then I had a vision of this on a shelf in our bedroom.”

Our bedroom.

It almost makes up for not being able to stretch Tim out himself.

Damian puts the plug down carefully on the desk, where he can see it. Tim takes his hand and squeezes the pomegranate scented lube over Damian's fingers. Damian brings his hand to his mouth, his tongue darting out. It’s a little too sickly in smell, but the taste isn’t too bad. A little chemically and artificial, but better than the smell.

Tim covers his own hand and reaches behind him to grab Damian’s condom-covered dick and slick it up. His lifts his hips up as he does so and Damian slides his hand between Tim’s legs to test how ready the plug has left him.

Two fingers slip in easily, and Tim is hot around his digits. It’s hard to imagine how he’s going to fit into such a tight passage. He explores how far he can stretch Tim with two fingers, then adds a third. He can get deeper with three, though his fingers aren’t as long and slim as Tim’s. He crooks them, and Tim shudders around him.

“There, Damian, there!”

“Indoor voice.” Damian’s voice is barely there itself, but Tim gasps and precum spurts from the tip of his cock.

“Always… looking out… for me,” Tim groans, grinding down on Damian’s hand. “Fuck, yes.”

Damian pulls his fingers free and grabs his cock. He holds it vertical, lining it up with Tim’s hole.

Tim slides down an inch, encompassing the head of Damian’s dick. Damian lets go, pulling his hand back out from between Tim’s legs and putting both hands on Tim’s bare hips again, careful not to get any lube on Tim’s suit.

Tim eases down a bit further. His brow is creased with concentration, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. Damian is caught between drowning in the sensation and being unable to stop watching his husband. Tim’s legs are a vice around his torso, thigh muscles quivering against Damian’s skin. He’s so tight around Damian’s cock it’s almost too much, and Damian uses his grip on Tim’s hip to hold him still a moment.

“Okay, baby bat?”

Damian stares up at the ceiling.

“You’re so tight,” he says. “Are you sure I’ll fit?”

Sweat starts to prickle on Tim skin, his cock bobbing against his stomach. He’s still almost completely dressed, shirt buttoned down to his waist, tie around his neck, the crotch of his trousers spread taut over Damian’s hips. The world burns around them. Damian wonders if he turned his head he’d see condensation on the glass walls.

“You’ll fit,” Tim says. “We can stop if you want, though. We can always stop, anything. You know that?”

“I do.”

Damian starts guiding Tim down again, his cock aching as the pressure slowly envelopes it. Heat rolls up is body, radiating from where he’s joined to Tim, and he’s going to need his spare shirt later because he’s sweating right through this one. Tim throws his head back, mouth open in a silent moue of pleasure. He’s beautiful. He’s the most beautiful thing Damian has ever seen. His cheeks meet Damian’s crotch, and Damian whines at the realisation his trousers are still up to his waist, only his fly is down. He wants more skin contact.

“Good, baby bat?”

Damian nods.

Tim starts moving up then, the condom riding up with him, and Damian whimpers as the base of his cock is exposed to the raw air. And then Tim’s grinding down, and Damian’s hips lift off the desk to meet him. Tim slams down hard enough that the desk rattles beneath them, and Damian lets go of him and clutches the metal edges. Tim looks down at him.

“Hold tight, baby bat. I’m gonna ride you.”

Damian does as he’s told. And, oh god, it’s worth it, it’s always worth doing what Tim tells him, because Tim is bouncing on his cock now, hands fisting in Damian’s shirt to keep his balance, his cock bobbing and spurting precum every time he finds the right spot. His face is a picture of ecstasy, a renaissance painting. He should be on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, along with Michelangelo's other gay icons. Damian would worship him.

Tim lets go of Damian’s shirt and grabs his own erection, pumping it. He’s going to come all over Damian’s suit, and Damian wants him to, wants to be covered in Tim’s mess, wants to wear it to every meeting. He doesn't know when this became a thing, if it'll always be a thing, but he loves the physicality of it. It's evidence he can reach for when it all seems to good to be true. It's a constant tease of revelation. It's Tim, pure Tim, Tim's essence, and he's spending it on Damian.

With his free hand Tim starts unknotting Damian’s tie, fingers fumbling with urgency. He whines through his teeth, no longer jerking but squeezing his cock, eyes glassy. He’s still riding Damian, hips circling up and down, but he’s bearing down on Damian’s cock so hard it’s almost painful, internal muscles rippling around Damian’s erection as he wars with his orgasm.

Damian lets go of the desk and lifts his head, yanking his still knotted tie over his head and bundling it into Tim’s hand. Tim pants his gratitude and presses the silk to the head of his cock. He comes with one long exhale, almost a sigh of relief. Damian feels it from inside him and he lets his head fall back as Tim rocks on his hard cock, chasing the last quaking spasms of orgasm.

Damian watches Lucius Fox walk past the glass walls. He doesn’t even look up from his phone. Damian aches for him, for everyone who’ll never see anything as beautiful as Tim coming down from orgasm, flushed and smiling. Tim ducks his head under the intensity of Damian’s adoring gaze, made shy by his own passion. Damian loves watching Tim lose control, but even more so he loves watching Tim realise he’s lost it.

He only loses that restraint, that icy cool exterior, when he’s happy and comfortable and the fact Damian can make him feel that way, here, colleagues mere metres away, makes Damian glow.

Tim rolls his hips and starts fucking down on Damian again.

“Look at me, baby bat. Come for me.”

Damian inhales, focuses, and concentrates on finding his own finish. The condom is distracting, not the texture Damian’s animal hindbrain is reaching for, but there’s something about the featherlight barrier in the way it teases him with sensation. He’d have come before Tim without it, he’s sure, and that’s it’s own kind of pleasure.

Tim is moving more carefully now, breath catching when Damian shaft brushes the sweet spot inside him that’s so close to overstimulation, and he’s watching Damian intently. When a certain twist makes Damian gasp and his fingers tighten on the edges of the desk, Tim does it again. He leans back, and then forward, until Damian’s sliding frictionlessly in and out. Damian would laugh at his husband’s dedication to research and analysis if heat wasn’t starting to grow inside him and his muscles weren’t starting to tense in anticipation. He curls his toes, trying to string the moment out longer, but now he knows it’s coming he’s hurtling towards it, that hot white moment.

Tim leans down and the angle change is enough to throw Damian over the edge. His hips snap off the desk as he comes and his mouth falls open. Tim’s lips seal over his, swallowing his cries of ecstasy, tongue pressed against the roof of Damian’s mouth. Damian moans into the kiss, sloppy and wet.

Tim keeps kissing him as Damian comes down. Damian manages to regain some control of himself as the aftershocks make him twitch and he tangles his tongue with Tim’s. He brings one hand up to twist in Tim’s hair.

His cock slips free of Tim has he softens, but they keep kissing.

Something on the floor vibrates loudly.

Tim pulls back. “Time’s up,” he says, wiping his mouth.

Damian pouts, and Tim lowers himself back down for another brief kiss. Damian wraps both arms around his lovers back and pulled him back down.

Tim kisses him until the alarm buzzes again. He puts both hands against Damian’s chest, and levers himself away from the embrace.

Damian sighs. “Did you set a third alarm?”

“I set five,” Tim admits, “but this is the stop kissing alarm.”

Damian cocks an eyebrow. Tim climbs off him, pulling his pants up and refastening them. He picks up his phone from the pile of detritus he swept off the desk earlier and holds it up so Damian can see the screen.

“Stop Kissing.”

“What are the others?”

Tim scrolls through them for Damian to see. “You Should be Dressed by Now”, “Tam is Going to Walk in On You” and “You Have a Meeting With Bruce that Started Ten Minutes Ago and He’s Going to Walk In in Three, Two, One…”

Damian pulls the used condom off his now flaccid cock.

Tim takes it from him and ties a knot in it. He pulls out a set of wet wipes and cleans Damian off, fondling his soft cock with gentle hands. Damian’s cock twitches. Tim breathes a fond sigh, and kisses Damian’s cheek, before grabbing another wipe to clean himself up. He wipes down the desk and cleans the butt plug as well, before wrapping the used condom and soiled wipes up together in a paper napkin. He stuffs the napkin into an empty to go coffee cup, which goes into a crumpled SunDollar bag, and the whole lot is dropped into the trash and squashed down.

Damian tucks himself back into his trousers. He pops his top button open, since apparently for the rest of the day he’s going to be sporting a more casual look.

“What should I saw if anyone asks about my tie?” Damian asks.

“You split something on it. Tea.” Tim picks up the sodden strip of fabric. “What do you want to do with it?”

If Damian isn’t careful he’s going to start a serious collection of cum-stained clothing. He’s going to have to get a glass case and a cave to put it in.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Tim says. “I’ll take it with me and rinse it out. Can you tidy up for me?” Damian pouts, and Tim chuckles. “I’ll come on everything you own, if you want me to, baby bat. What’s yours is mine. But maybe I want to keep the tie, have you considered that?”

Damian picks the buttplug up from the desk. “I’m taking this, then,” he says, even though he has no idea where he’ll hide it in the mansion.

Tim kisses him on the cheek, and walks stiffly out of the room, crossing the corridor to the bathroom opposite.

Damian pockets the butt plug and starts picking files up off the floor.

Most of them are contracts Damian recognises from his research into Drake Industry investors. It’s not snooping, he reasons, if Tim asked him to tidy up. Tidying up naturally means ensuring he refiles the paperwork correctly, which means taking an at least cursory glance at their contents.

This is one of those things he should talk over with Dr Kenway.

He’d gone into therapy planning to use it like Tim did. He’d told Kenway to provide him with a method to suppress his fears: some kind of technique or script.

“A necessary state of affairs is making me uncomfortable. I need a psychological tool in order to prevent myself from overreacting.”

Kenway had not been impressed by this tack. Before Damian could assert his dominance and demand answers, Kenway had asked… Damian can’t remember, precisely, but suddenly instead of Tim and secrecy he was caught up describing a slight inflicted on him by the board barely twenty minutes earlier, and she’d asked just a couple of questions, but they’d been the right ones, somehow, and a knot had just undone in his chest that he hadn’t even known was there. Sure, his reaction had been strong, and maybe he shouldn’t have brought up Mr Black’s recent divorce or Ms Creed’s deceased mother, but he hadn’t imagined the racist undertones of Croft’s comment, either.

By the time she’d circled back to his initial request, Damian was able to admit he might not be overreacting to the situation he refused to describe to her.

“Physical discomfort is usually a sign we’re doing something to our bodies that isn’t good for them in the long run. Emotional discomfort is the same.”

And then he thinks- and then he stops thinking, and stops talking, because there’s something so big and so huge and so terrifying on the other side of that thought. Tim is- Tim isn’t- He just needs a tool to help him handle what’s necessary.

“I need an emotional splint,” he told Kenway. “A band aid for an emotional blister, while I’m not in a position to stop walking.”

“What happens if you stop walking?” she asked.

He has a feeling that if he tells her about reading Tim’s files, she’s going to ask probing questions like “what was your overriding emotion at the time?” - guilt - and “what were you expecting to gain?” - knowledge - and “why did you feel this was the best way to do that?” - Tim wouldn’t answer if he asked him outright - and “what’s led you to that conclusion?”.

She doesn’t give him tools. She gives him a sounding board.

In all their sessions she never uses the negative, never asks him why he didn’t do or say or try something. She just probes, gently, and they look together at why he reacts in certain ways to apparently innocuous behaviours, and why some people might behave that way but they’re not doing it at him (while others definitely are, and how to tell the difference).

It’s simultaneously reassuring to know it’s not normal to feel this way, but also that it’s not so abnormal that he’s unfixable.

Case in point, he’s not snooping in Tim’s files. It’s making him feel guilty, so he stops.

Only.

Only there’s also personnel files here.

Tam’s employment contract.

Which is now a Drake Industries contract.

Tam has always been Wayne Enterprises. Drake Industries was already gone by the time her father got her a job chasing Tim around the world.

He doesn’t feel guilty any more.

Before he can think too hard about it, Damian scoops up the files and sticks them in a folder, which he tucks under his arm.

“Tim?”

Tam sticks her head around the door.

“Bathroom,” Damian says. He tries to look like he’s meant to be there.

“He’s due in the boardroom in five minutes,” Tam says, her exasperation bleeding through her professional demeanour. “Where’s his laptop?”

Damian passes it to her from the top of the filing cabinet. Most of the desk’s detritus is still scattered across the carpet and Tam has to pick her way through it to get the laptop. She frowns at the folder under Damian’s arm.

“You shouldn’t tidy up after him, you know,” she says. “He’s too used to having people wait on him. It’d do him more good to let him live amongst the trash for a bit.”

She’s wrong, but Damian doesn’t correct her.

“If he needs these back, I’ll be in my office,” he says, gesturing to the folder. “I don’t have time to wait for him either.”

“Wait schmait. I’m not afraid of the men’s bathroom, and I’m not turning up late to another meeting. He’s probably just browsing github on his phone again,” Tam says. “Like he’d notice anything was missing in this mess. Have you got everything you need?”

“I think so.”

He hopes so.


	24. In which things come to a (demon's) head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Bonfire Night! Appropriately enough, here be fireworks. Brace yourselves, things are about to get painful.

Damian catches Tim in the lobby. It’s a terrible place to have this discussion, especially at the end of the day when it’s full of staff hurrying home, but he’s too angry to care.

“You’re leaving,” Damian says, grabbing Tim’s arm to hold him in place.

“I- what?”

Damian waves the sheath of documents in Tim’s face. “You’re spinning off Drake Industries! You’re leaving us.”

Gasps echo around them, and Damian remembers where they are. There's enough freelancers, contractors and visitors milling around that it's only a matter of time before someone who stands to benefit shares the news online. He’s going to tank his own company’s shares. But why should he care? Drake doesn’t. Drake’s got his own company.

“Demerging,” Tim says. He shakes Damian’s hands off and grabs for the files. “Where did you get these? Have you been spying on me?”

“You forced me to.” Damian holds the papers out of Tim’s reach. It’s a childish move, but watching Drake jump for them affords him some satisfaction. “You and your secrets; it’s just how you function, isn’t it? At this point I don’t even know why it surprises me. You couldn’t be open and honest if you _vowed_ to.”

Tim flinches. His hands fall to his sides and his gaze drops. “Damian.”

“Don’t say it, Drake. Don’t tell me this isn’t the time or the place, don’t tell me to wait. I’m done waiting. You’ve been putting this together for _months_ , and you’ve never said a word.”

“Really? Fine, let’s do this here, then.” Tim’s eyes come back up, and they’re hard as ice. “Yes, I’ve been working towards this for a while.”

“‘A while’,” Damian mimics nastily. “Tell me, is that longer or shorter than ‘soon’?”

Tim grits his teeth and his hands ball into fists at his sides. “Don’t be so naive, Damian. Life doesn’t run to a schedule. You have to be patient.”

“Patient? Any time I question you, that’s what I get, isn’t it? I have to be _patient_. Only you don’t mean patient, do you? You mean I have to put all my faith in you. I have to let you have complete control. I have to shut up and sit quietly while your steer the ship straight into the iceberg.”

“You have to trust me! I’m trying to do what’s best for us, here!”

“How can you do something for _us_ when you’re the only one who knows about it?” Damian slams the papers against Drake’s chest. “It’s about you. It’s always about you and what’s best for you. Your boundaries. Your anxieties. Your need for control.”

“You take unilateral decisions on other people’s behalves all the time because you think you know what’s best for them. You’ve spent the past year and a half experimenting with my caffeine intake ‘for my own good’! Call me controlling? You barge into my office in a panic if I skip breakfast! You use interns to spy on me!”

“A socially acceptable addiction is still an addiction. It's a _weakness_.”

He knows as soon as he uses that word he’s changing the argument. He can see the old insult land in Tim’s subconscious, watches his stance change from Timothy Jackson Drake to Robin, his arms coming up to defend himself from the blows that experience has taught both of them are inevitable after a certain point.

“Weak? That’s what it always comes back to, isn’t it?” Red Robin snaps. “You don’t trust me to know what’s best for myself, let alone us, because you think I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough for Bruce, I’m not good enough for your grandfather, and I’m not good enough for you. I have my own strengths, Damian! I bring something to the table too!”

The world shrinks down to the two of them, the shocked muttering of onlookers fading into white noise. They could be anywhere: a rooftop, the cave, a collapsing mansion.

“You’ve always held yourself apart from the family. Father took you in and did everything he could to protect your legacy, and now you’re stealing it out from under his nose. You keep telling me how carefully we have to manage his emotions so he won’t feel betrayed, and all the time you were sharpening a different blade to plunge into his back.”

“It’s not stealing if it’s mine! It’s a sensible decision to take. Bruce will see that.”

“How is he going to see that if you don’t ever tell him?”

“I was waiting for the right moment!”

“Now who is being naive? There is no such moment, Drake, and if you wait for it it will be taken from you.” Damian folds his arms over his chest. “It is the same weakness as always, isn’t it? You’re paralysed. You justify it to yourself as research, analyses, preparation, but it always comes down to the same thing. You are not a man of action. You do not jump until you’re pushed. Well, let me push you. Go! Take your contracts and your staff and start your new life without me!”

“I’m not going anywhere without you, Damian.”

“Well you’re clearly not planning to take me with you, because you’d have had to tell me first, and then it wouldn’t be a secret any more. You like secrets, don’t you? Do they make you feel special, Drake? When there’s nothing else in your life, at least you have your secrets.”

“Fuck you, Damian. Nothing else? At least I have friends. The only people willing to put up with your are bound by blood or-” Tim catches himself. “You've always tried to persuade yourself I don't belong, Damian. And I don't. I'm not like you _or_ Dick _or_ Jason. I’m not a child he took into his home because he felt sorry for them. I went to him in his hour of need. 

“Bruce needs me, not the other way around. I'm the one he made heir to Wayne Enterprises. I'm the one that came to him, I'm the one that _proved_ my worth. You're insecure because your only claim to be here is genetics. You don't truly think you deserve it, you never have, and rather than work to earn your place like I did you try and drag me down to your level.”

“You’re lying!” Damian hears the hitch in his voice, feels his control slipping as his eyes start to burn. He’s losing, and he’s panicking, the cold fear of failure clawing its way up from his gut and through his lungs, freezing the air in them. If he loses control then Drake is right, Drake is right about everything, and he doesn’t deserve to be here. “You’ve been lying to father for months and you’re proud of it! You _boast_ about your ability to fool and undermine him. You’ve fooled everyone, but you can’t fool me. I see you. I _know_ you.”

“I’m not trying to fool anyone, Damian! I’m just managing information. Unlike some people, I’m capable of a little discretion.”

It cuts deep, but Damian knows it could be deeper. Tim’s holding back.

Damian narrows his eyes. He’s losing control and Tim is still capable of holding back. It’s not fair. It’s not right.

“You keep secrets,” Damian says, “because you’re scared of what people would think if they knew the real you. You’re scared, because when people do get to know you, they leave you. Your parents travelled the world rather than spend time with you. Your girlfriend faked her death. Your brother chose me over you. Father-”

Tim’s face is white, eyes red, and he’s gasping. Damian’s winning.

“We have to strategise around you!” Tim shouts. His voice is shaking. “It’s not just me who has contingency plans for the inevitable day when you-”

He breaks off with a squawk. Before Damian can react his collar is choking him, and he’s dragged into his toes. Tim’s feet aren’t even touching the floor.

The rest of the world rushes back in to fill Damian’s senses. The cold light of the fluorescents overhead. The mutter and shuffle of the gathered crowd. The papers Damian collated about the demerger of Drake Industries lie on the floor around them like drifts of snow. Damian doesn’t even remember dropping them.

His father’s fist is tight in the back of his shirt, holding him aloft like a mischievous kitten. Tim dangles likewise from Bruce’s grasp.

Alfred appears opposite Bruce.

“The car?”

“Is at the front, Master Bruce.”

“Good.” Father lets go, and Damian rocks as he regains his balance. Tim stumbles and falls against Damian’s chest. Damian folds his arms around Tim instinctively, like he can protect him from the pain Damian just inflicted. “Alfred is taking both of you home, where we will _talk_.”

Tim moves against Damian’s chest, nods in response to Bruce’s commands, and after a beat he pushes himself away from Damian.

The world blurs, and Damian blinks away tears. It’s over now.

Tim tugs on Damian’s sleeve, and Damian follows him out of the Wayne Enterprise lobby.

#

Damian looks more miserable than Tim can ever remember seeing him. The urge to reach out and comfort his husband wars with the sheer cold fury of hearing Damian call out his every deepest insecurity in front of their employees, laying Tim out like a buffet for the vultures.

The worst part is knowing he deserved at least some of it. Not everything, not towards the end when Damian stopped trying to win and started trying to make Tim lose (and hadn't Tim just pointed out that is one of Damian's default tactics?), but his husband might have a point about Tim's secrecy.

Because, sitting here, watching tears make their way silently over Damian's cheeks, he can't deny he knew he was hurting Damian.

The guilt sits in his gut like chum, cold and heavy and rotten, and it's summoning sharks. He can feel the toxic thoughts circling, ready to feast on everything Damian brought to the surface and more. He's weak. He's unwanted. He has to manipulate people into staying with him, has to keep secrets to feel special.

If he could just do everything right - say the right words, perform the right actions - then everything would be fine. He'd be loved. If he can make everyone else go along with him, things will work out. He just has to be in control. He just has to be perfect. He just needs more time.

The car phone trills, making all the occupants jump.

"Bruce Wayne's car, Pennyworth speaking."

"Hey, Al. Is Bruce with you?"

"I'm afraid not, Master Jason, just the young masters. Have you tried his cell?"

"Yeah. Look, can you tell him I've got to go out of town? It's for the reason we discussed last month. He should remember."

"Very good, Master Jason."

"Hopefully I'll be back for Sunday dinner." Jason doesn't sound confident. "And I'll bring Remains of the Day back soon. You read it, Al?"

"It sits a little close to home for my tastes."

"Yeah, I can imagine. Good, though." 

"Was there anything else?"

"Keep an eye out for ninja, Al. Are you sure you've got the replacement and the demon brat in there? It's awfully quiet."

Alfred checks the rearview mirror. Tim meets his eyes.

"Yes, Master Jason."

"Alright. Well, if I don't see you Sunday, I'll see you soon."

Jason hangs up. Tim was vaguely aware he was spending more time at the mansion, but he'd underestimated quite how regular a visitor he is if he's calling to skip a visit instead of confirming one.

He ought to be pleased for Jason, but instead it's another organ assigned to the bloody bucket of insecurity. He feels squeezed out of the family, and he's only brought it on himself. He could have let Bruce adopt him again. He could have left the Drake Industries contracts alone. He told himself a story about him and Damian and a new family they were building together, but he's sabotaged that just as thoroughly as he sabotages his every relationship. He doesn't deserve to be loved. He's just trying to make it easier for the people who feel obliged.

Two things happen at once:

Damian asks, "What did Todd say about ninja?" and his voice is so steady and calm Tim's heart finds a whole new way to break.

Simultaneously, a couple of blocks behind them, back in the direction of Wayne Tower, there is a large explosion.

Tim takes a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Alfred. Apologise to Bruce for me."

And he opens the car door, and jumps out.

#

“Beloved?”

Damian is lying face down in his bed, one arm over Titus’s back, and it takes more effort than it should to prop himself up on his elbows and look around. He’s exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with physical exertion. His eyes are hot and gritty, his sinuses hot and heavy, and his mouth is filled with cotton.

His mother is sat on the bed beside him. As he looks up at her she reaches over to card her fingers through his hair, like she used to when he was a child. He thinks maybe he’s dreaming, and that’s why his body is so heavy.

“Oh, beloved, what a time this must have been for you.”

Damian curls his body until he can rest his head on his mother’s lap. She bends over and presses a kiss to his brow. Titus lifts his greying muzzle and eyes Talia suspiciously.

“These fights are a fact of married life, habibi. You’ll find a way past it.”

“I tried to destroy him, mother,” Damian says to his mother’s waist. “I was deliberately cruel.”

“That which does not kill is makes us stronger.”

“I love him. How could I say these things to someone I love?”

“You are superior to him in every way, beloved. Your frustration is natural. You only want him to be better. He owes it to you to better himself. Father told me you said yourself you would only accept a husband worthy of you, and we both know there is no one worthy of my prince.”

When his mother says it, it all makes perfect sense.

“You don’t have to stay married to him, if you don’t want to. Father will be angry, but it will pass. We will find you someone worthier.”

Damian sighs and pushes himself upright. He looks his mother in the eye.

“I am the unworthy one,” he says. “He asked for my trust and my patience and I failed to give him either.” He rubs some of the sand from his swollen eyes. “I love him, mother. I love him more than I thought was possible, and I set out in that conversation to wound him as deeply as only I can. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“You are a creature of high passions. He provoked you.”

“Mother, I am not the one in the right here. I do not need you to make me feel better about my actions. I need to understand how I let myself lose control, and if there is any chance of making it up to him.” Damian yawns and stretches, his spine cracking. “You’re really here, aren’t you? I’m not dreaming.”

“I am really here, beloved.” She smiles at him, brushing the hair from his eyes. “You’ve grown so much since I last saw you.”

“Grandfather told you about the wedding.”

“After it happened.” A frown mars the perfect lines of her face. “I went as soon as I realised what was happening, but I got there the day after you left. Father was very proud of himself. Do you really love him?”

“Wholeheartedly.”

“I’m surprised. It’s only been three months.”

“I think I loved him for a long time before that.” Damian presses his lips together, holding back the smile that always crosses his face when he thinks of loving Tim. If he smiles, he’ll start crying again. “I don’t know how long he’s loved me. I don’t know if he still does. He shouldn’t.”

“It doesn’t go away with one fight, Damian. Look at your father and me. We still love each other, despite everything.”

“But you can’t be together.”

Talia turns her head away from him. She has more practice with heartbreak than Damian, but he suspects that sometimes the tears still come to her, too.

“He didn’t know.”

“Tim? I’ve told him I love him.”

“Your father, about the wedding.”

“We were waiting for the right moment.”

Talia laughs. She’s still staring at the wall, but her hand comes up to pet Damian’s head.

“Your husband has been torturing you for months, hasn’t he? No wonder you lost your temper. Forbidden from demonstrating your love, from lavishing your affections on him, staking your claim to him. How could you trust a man who forbade you from exercising such a fundamental part of you?”

“Tt. I am not one for physical displays of affection, mother. You trained that out of me.” Damian sighs. “I have been frustrated with our mutual inaction, but the moments we have been able to snatch together have been spent on other…. activities.” His cheeks heat up. “I did not want to waste precious time hashing out disagreements. He insisted he was preparing a plan, and even though I know he is prone to over-analysing to the point of inaction, I did not want to risk a small fight over it.”

“So instead you bottled it up until you had enough for a big fight.” Talia takes his hand and squeezes it. “Well, your paralysis is at an end.”

“Is there anything I can say to persuade you not to tell father?”

“I spoke to him before I came to you.”

“How did he receive the news?”

Talia brings Damian’s hand to her mouth and kisses the back of it. “I have faith you will weather this storm. If your husband does as well, perhaps he _is_ worthy of you.”

It does not sound like Bruce took it well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If returning home was the end of act one, this is the end of act two (or thereabouts - the advantage over a novel compared with a play is I don't have to drop the curtain at any point). The secret is out, and not in the way they wanted it to come out. You'll be relieved/anxious to know there's another Bruce interlude coming on Wednesday.


	25. Interlude: The Dark Knight

He doesn’t want to believe Talia. Doesn’t want to believe he could have missed something so big.

The way she tells it, his boys were frightened and alone, forced to submit to a cruel ceremony, drugged, injured, tortured. Forced to… Forced to consummate, under Ra’s watchful eye.

He knows he bears some blame for this. He taught them to put the missions above all else. He’s led by example, fighting with near fatal injuries, keeping himself awake to the point of hallucination, leaving PTSD symptoms untreated,. He has maintained that Damian’s conception was consensual, despite Talia having drugged him.

It is no wonder the sons he raised accepted Ra’s terms.

What hurts is that they lied.

He’s been trying to demonstrate trust in his sons, to give them space to come to him. And he can see why they would have struggled to approach him with this, but their decision to actively lie disturbs him. It lends weight to Talia’s other claims.

Bruce’s is distantly aware his jaw is aching, and he presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth to release the tension. He’s been gritting his teeth so hard one of his fillings is loose. He’ll need another cover story for the orthodontist.

He doesn’t want to believe a woman who thinks the best way to get his attention is to blow up half of the financial district could be closer to his sons than he is.

He starts pulling up footage on the computer, looking for signs he might have missed. Surely, if Talia is telling him the truth, the distance they appeared to be keeping after Tim’s kidnapping was a sham. He has tracers in both their suits, but Tim has rarely gone out in uniform since Turkey, so he combines the data with the GPS from their phones and factors in facial recognition on CCTV.

It ought to be reassuring when he finds they’ve barely seen each other, and when they have it’s been here or at the office, but it only supports the idea that seeing each other is traumatic.

The CCTV from the computer lab at Gotham University is unpleasant to watch for someone so used to reading body language. Tim looks physically pained and Damian has the stiff movements of someone fighting a panic attack. They’re not happy to see each other. They’re hurting each other.

The CCTV on campus is patchy. He picks Damian up at a coffee shop, buying a muffin and orange juice to go, and sees Tim join him, but they exit together. The GPS suggests they stay in the immediate area for less than an hour, then part ways. Bruce finds Damian summoning an uber to get home, which tallies with his recollection of the day, and Tim walks back to his apartment.

Surveillance at the mansion is much more thorough, and it’s easy to find the dates when both boys have been under his roof. Based on their locations, their next encounter was the day Jason told Bruce about his studies.

Bruce wonders if either of his older boys have been harbouring any suspicions about what’s going on, but Dick is currently working with Troia and the Flash and Jason made good on his promise to leave Gotham when Talia turned up. A little more warning she was coming would have been nice, but that he called at all is a huge step in their relationship.

Bruce’s fingers hover over the keyboard, ready to pull up the audio from the rec room. It's possible Tim and Damian said something to Jason. At Damian's graduation, Jason told Bruce he should investigate what happened in Turkey further. Did he suspect something like this? Or is it just a sign that Bruce has been so distracted by moving his relationship with Jason forward that he's stopped paying attention to his other children? Maybe he needs to pull away from his second son a little, to get some perspective on the situation.

Before he can follow that line of thought further, something about the idea of perspective brings up another memory from the day Tim and Jason came for dinner. Tim, in his office.

_“We don’t need a piece of paper to tell us we’re family.”_

Tim stood in Bruce’s office, smiled at him, hugged him, reassured him, and told him not to re-formalise their relationship.

Why?

__"Ra’s will interfere again to prove he can."_ _

It’s too painful to keep searching manually, so Bruce sets up an algorithm to pull up potentially incriminating audio. It sorts it by voice signature.

_“Oh god, Damian, don’t tempt me.”_

_“This is what we want, isn’t it? People taking us seriously together. People seeing our potential as a pair. It’s a step in the right direction.”_

_“We should arrange a kind of public clash, something to do with Wayne Enterprises, where we both posture and swagger and stand too close to each other and everyone thinks ‘they should just fuck it out’. And then Bruce sends us on a business trip together, somewhere exotic, to force us to work together, only there’s a mix up at the hotel and there’s only one room available, and-”_

_“Sometimes the right choice and the healthy choice aren’t the same thing. This isn’t healthy.”_

_“We’re already married.”_

And Damian:

_I’d rather take the risk and tell them now.”_

_“What have they said about all the secrecy?”_

_“You and your secrets; it’s just how you function, isn’t it? At this point I don’t even know why it surprises me. You couldn’t be open and honest if you _vowed_ to.”_

_“It’s about you. It’s always about you and what’s best for you. Your boundaries. Your anxieties. Your need for control.”_

It’s Tim.

Tim insisted on secrecy.

Tim insisted on lying.

Tim planned everything: avoiding the adoption, fighting with Damian, the corporate spin off of Drake Industries. Bruce wonders how far back it goes, how long he’s been manipulating Damian.

He’s always known Tim has this in him. He remembers watching Tim battle with himself over whether to save Captain Boomerang from the trap Tim himself had laid, and the resentment in Tim’s eyes when Batman had reprimanded him for it. Ra’s admires Tim for the same reason. Did they plan this together? All those ninja attacks, were they collaborating the whole time?

No wonder Damian’s been anxious and stressed recently; he’s been trying to escape Tim’s clutches.

And his father has been pushing them together to satisfy his selfish need for a family.

No more.

Tim doesn’t want to be his son? Tim isn’t his son. Damian is, and Bruce is going to save him.


	26. In which some conversations drive people apart and others start bringing them back together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for references to self harm in this part. Tim is spiralling! I've updated the tags.
> 
> Tickled by how quickly comments started to appear on the last chapter. American fen staying up to watch the election results? I hope if you were eligible to vote you weren't prevented from doing so.
> 
> (and well done Florida on giving former convicts back their basic rights!)

Damian knows his father’s visit is imminent because his mother takes her leave. He clings to her when she tries to move away. It’s like the first night back in Gotham again, caught between adulthood and childhood. Childhood is safe. Children are protected.

But Talia slips from his grip with a final kiss on the top of his head.

“There is always a space for you at my side,” she says, “if you choose.”

“If I choose you over him,” Damian says, and for the first time in his life ‘him’ isn’t his father.

“I am your mother,” she says. “You don’t have a choice in the matter.”

He tenses, but she merely smiles, and blows him a kiss. And then she’s gone out of the window, and then it’s only him and Titus in the room.

Titus pushes his nose into Damian’s hand. Damian fondles the dog’s ears. Titus was his first ever friend, loves him without judgement, does not keep secrets, doesn’t ask him to choose sides. The big dog whuffles and snorts into Damian’s hip, and Damian drops to his knees on the carpet to wrap both arms around his pet.

He doesn’t hear the door open, but when he looks up Batman is standing at the end of his bed.

“Good evening,” Damian says.

“Robin. Damian.”

Damian stands slowly, keeping one hand on Titus. He’s still wearing his suit from the office, crumpled and creased. He knows his eyes are red and his hair is flatted against his head from lying in his mother’s lap.

“Your mother visited you.”

Damian nods.

“We need to improve security.”

“To keep my mother out?”

“To keep you safe.”

“I am not unsafe.” Damian lets his centre of gravity drop, his shoulders rolling back and his hands curling into loose fists. To the untrained eye the change in posture would be almost invisible, but he wants his father to see that Damian is ready for anything.

Batman’s cowl is impassive.

“I have reviewed the audio and visual logs since your return from Turkey. I have not kept you safe. This will change.” Batman puts a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “You will remain in the manor until I have dealt with… Until the problem is dealt with.”

“The problem?” Damian has to make a conscious effort not to shift his posture from ‘ready to defend’ to ‘defensive’. He’s already had one nightmare fight with a family member today. He needs to keep his temper.

“All of the security codes have been changed. Only I can access the cave.”

“You’ve locked Tim out?” Damian stares at his father.

“I have locked everyone out,” Batman says. “Access will be returned only to those who I can guarantee have your safety as a primary concern. I do not know who else your grandfather has recruited.”

Anger floods through Damian. His fists tighten, and he has to close his eyes and concentrate on his breathing for several seconds to make himself relax them again. Titus has gone stiff at his side, hackles up.

“Timothy is no turncoat,” Damian grinds out. “He acquiesced to grandfather’s plan to save our lives. To save Gotham.”

“Red Robin has spent almost a decade fostering ties with Ra’s and his organisation, justifying the relationship as one of a transactional nature. He… sees too many shades of grey, and it has compromised him.”

“He’s not compromised,” Damian says hotly. “No one is compromised. Timothy was right about your reaction; it is out of proportion with what happened. You-”

“Your grandfather had your brother rape you.”

Damian’s anger is swallowed by his father’s rage. The world falls silent so Batman’s growl is the only sound. The light dies so Batman’s silhouette looms over the room. Damian’s skin prickles with phantom wingbeats, and his room smells like the funereal damp of the cave.

This is the Bat that inspires cowardice and superstition.

This is the Bat his father shows to criminals, and Damian is not a criminal. Tim is not a criminal. His fury rises to meet Batman’s like fire climbs the side of a building.

“My husband has _never_ laid a hand on me without my invitation. Even in our childhood, when you let me vent my fear by putting his life at risk, he never returned the favour. You failed _him_. You failed both of us.”

“He is not your husband! This is stockholm syndrome, Damian, but I will save you.”

Batman steps forward.

Titus snarls. Bruce stops and looks down, and Damian feels a stab of pride in his dog’s loyalty.

“I don’t need saving! I am not a victim, or a child, or your sidekick.”

“You are my son!”

“I wish I wasn’t!”

Damian’s chest heaves.

“Well, you are,” Batman says. “And you are grounded.”

“Grounded?” Damian’s jaw drops. “I’m eighteen. I’m married! You can’t ground me like a child.”

“You are benched, and you are grounded, and you are not to leave your rooms until i give you permission. It is for your own good.”

“Really? Who’s going to walk Titus? Who’s going to feed Batcow?”

“Your concerns are noted.”

Batman says it like Damian has failed a test. Damian’s gaze drops to the floor as he tries to rein in his temper, too angry to look at his father. How dare he. How dare he!

But it’s a mistake, because when he raises his eyes again, ready to demand the respect he is due, Batman is gone.

“Ya kalb! Ya Ibn el Sharmouta! Ayreh feek, ya sharmouta, kol khara!”

Titus howls, and Damian’s torrent of curses dries up in the face of the cold reality that the only being present to hear his anger doesn’t understand it.

“How dare he, Titus?” Damian begs, throwing himself onto the bed. “How can he do this? He didn’t even give me a chance to explain.”

What should he have said? Was there some magic phrase that would prove his maturity to his father, or show that he was truly acting under his own compulsion? Should he have asked who would be patrolling by his father’s side? Should he have questioned whether Nightwing, Red Hood, Black Bat and Batgirl would be informed of why they’ve been locked out of the cave? How will Batman determine loyalty? What criteria must one meet to be deemed an adult?

Titus heaves his aging body onto the bed, taking up most of the narrow mattress of the single bed. School books still reside on the shelves, his artistic juvenalia decorates the walls.

Damian has outgrown this room. It closes around him oppressively, the space shrinking until he feels like he’s being strangled by it. He doesn’t fit here any more. He needs to spread his wings.

Robin needs to fly.

#

Tim’s first instinct at seeing “unrecognised number” flash up on his phone screen is to ignore it. He doesn’t hand the number out, so if it’s not in his phone book it’s probably an auto-dialler sending out spam texts inviting him to reply to stop to unsubscribe.

Only he’s been pacing around his apartment for hours now, unable to settle at anything. All the coping mechanisms he learnt in therapy dissolve in the face of the overwhelming guilt he feels, and the temptation to let the darkness out hangs over him. He’s never self-harmed. At least, he’s never taken a blade to himself, or burnt himself, or bruised himself. No, he’s just put on the suit and let other people do it for him. The pull to punish himself is like an undertow, snatching his feet out from under him and dragging him around the apartment to show him all the useful tools he owns.

He resists, but he isn’t sure he can explain why he’s bothering. It’s for Damian’s sake, but why should Damian care any more? Why should he care what Damian thinks? Everything is about Damian, this pain is about Damian, Damian is his everything. He needs Damian to care, so he can’t risk hurting himself, because if he does and Damian doesn’t care he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop.

He should call someone. He shouldn’t be alone.

He doesn’t want anyone who isn’t Damian.

He doesn’t deserve anyone.

He keeps pacing around his apartment, and passes the sofa where his phone is lying on the cushions.

Five texts from an unrecognised number.

So what if it’s spam? He can delete it. He can back hack it. It’s something to focus on, just for thirty seconds.

The first text is a moon emoji.

Tim’s knees give out and he drops to the floor next to the sofa.

Knowing it’s Damian paralyses him. Does he want to read the message string? Is it forgiveness or a final end? How is he supposed to know whether its safe to read the other messages?

He presses his face into the cushions and takes a deep breath. The moon. Ya amar. Damian wouldn’t start with that if he was finishing things.

Even so, Tim’s mind starts to argue with him, starts to undermine his certainty and pick out every time Damian has shown himself capable of that kind of cruelty.

No, no, Damian isn’t that person any more.

He was earlier.

Tim drove him to it.

Oh for fuck’s sake. Even Tim is getting sick of his own angst. Damian clearly isn’t wallowing any more.

It’s a moment of clarity and Tim knows from experience that these moments don’t last, so he opens the text string before this wave function collapses and he’s back in the emotional quantum field of knowing what he’s fucking up or why he’s fucking up but not both at once.

~ Moon Emoji  
~ I know you may not wish to hear from me right now, but it is imperative you hear me out.  
~ Mother has visited. She has informed father of our wedding. He has taken the news badly, hearing it from her instead of us. He is suspicious of our ongoing secrecy. He cannot conceive of my willing consent.  
~ You should leave Gotham.  
~ I’m sorry.

Tim is still processing the news when another message appears.

~I love you. Please reply. He will take this phone from me as soon as he realises I have it. Please let me know you’ve received this. ::moon emoji::

It occurs to Tim that Damian must be texting from the burner phone to avoid alerting Bruce. Oh dear god, Bruce is going to take the burner phone. Bruce is going to find the photos.

~Message received. I’ll wipe it remotely.

Tim hits send before he has a chance to second guess himself, and immediately regrets it.

He fumbles at the touch screen and sends ~ I vole yuo to ~ as an immediate follow up.

He stares at the word salad, and a strange noise escapes his throat. It takes him a moment to realise he’s laughing.

He types more slowly.

~ I love you. I’m sorry, too. Too sorry to be conveyed in a message like this. I know I can’t take back what I said (apart from I vole yuo, which I do take back, because we haven’t been communicating well recently and that’s just salt in the wound). I ask you to forgive me, but I won’t ask you to forget. You were right on too many counts for either of us to forget.  
~ I get that you think Bruce’s upset is due to our secrecy, but the timing of your mother’s visit is suspicious. She has something to gain from being the one to tell Bruce, and his reaction suggests she has deliberately planted the idea that it was non-consensual. I wish he hadn’t found out this way, and I admit that putting off telling him allowed this to happen, but I still maintain it would have been possible to find a way of telling him that would have made this easier on him. Whether or not we see eye to eye on this, events have got ahead of us, so hashing it out will have to wait.  
~ No, I’m sorry. We shouldn’t put off working it out. I just don’t want another fight.  
~ I don’t know how to fix this, Damian. I don’t know what to do.

~ I ::mouse emoji:: yuo also.  
~ (that is the closest to a vole I can find. The emotion icon set on this phone is appallingly limited. What if I wanted to express something through the medium of a capybara? Queen needs to improve the range of icons on his cellular devices. Do you think Todd will pass the message on via his archer for us?)  
~ Mother has her own agenda. She is upset that grandfather engineered this and cut her out. She has retreated to watch the fallout of her actions, but I suspect she has not gone far. Stay safe.  
~ I don’t want to fight either. I beg your forgiveness as well, and caution you against forgetting. I don’t know what else to say, yet. I don’t know what to do either, but you are right about wiping this phone.  
~ You do still have the originals, right?

~ I do, yes.  
~ ::mouse emoji::

~ ::moon emoji::

Tim’s knees are sore from kneeling - _he’s twenty three, how is he so sore? The vigilante lifestyle is hell on his joints and honestly, how can Bruce even climb stairs any more if Tim is this stiff after only a decade of crime fighting?_ \- and he scrambles up onto the sofa. He pulls his laptop over and curls up with it balanced on his knees. He plugs his phone in and downloads a worm he wrote for this purpose a few years back.

It hurts to send it, but the longer they leave it the higher the chance Bruce will confiscate it. There’s nothing about this situation that a photo of him cumming is going to improve. Literally nothing.

Besides, he’s definitely going to print some of the originals and hang them in their bedroom, when there’s a bedroom that’s theirs.

He doesn’t know whether its an idle fantasy or a serious one, now: an old brownstone building in lower Gotham, somewhere with a fireplace in each room, but not the dark wood panelling of somewhere like the manor. No, fresh, bright colours, cool greys and stylish tans. A king size bed with a canopy, a marble fireplace with a selection of beautiful toys on the mantelpiece instead of ornaments, some discretely framed erotic images. A safe space for sex and sleeping, work free. Trash free.

Titus is not going to sleep on the bed. Maybe the cat? But definitely not the dog.

Doubt churns in his stomach, pushing back against the domestic fantasy. What if Damian wants Titus in there? What if it turns into another fight?

Now they’ve had one, the potential for disagreements blowing up seems endless.

Well, maybe he’s borrowing trouble from tomorrow. It’s all well and good picking out an imaginary apartment somewhere in Gotham in walking distance of the financial district and grappling distance of their respective patrol routes, but it’s going to be a while, if ever, before that’s a real consideration. Titus isn’t going anywhere for now, but Tim needs to.

His insistence on secrecy has already blown up with Bruce, but there’s time to get ahead of the rumour mill when it comes to the rest of the family. If he can find the right way to break the news (and even if he’s not sure about the right way, he knows the wrong way is later, so that’s a starting point) they might be able to pull a few of the more level headed family members around to their side, and they’ll be able to pick up the argument with Bruce. Once Bruce sees how happy he and Damian are, he’ll have to relent, right?

Assuming they’re happy.

He starts drafting emails.

 

  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters are on the short side, but the timing means they'll be coming thick and fast as news starts to spread (more interludes ahoy!). In the original plan for this, Damian was still underaged, which fed into Bruce's reaction, but god knows Tim and Damian are reaping what they've sewn.


	27. Interlude: Group Chat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why don't any of the fake text generators do group chats? Is it that much harder to code?

Groupchat  
BG3: wtf has happened to tim?  
R1: ?  
BG3: I hv a death email fm him  
BG3: “If you are receiving this, I have passed away”  
BG1: timestamp?  
BG3: 1 hr ago  
BG1: he booked a flight to hawaii 20 minutes ago. Also bus fare to New York, and train fare to Bludhaven.  
R1: ive got one with “if you are receiving this, it’s because I’m too chicken to tell you in person”  
R2: ditto  
BG2: ^  
BG3: srsly? of all the pass agg bs, tim. It wasnt even my idea to fake my death!  
BG1: well, i haven’t got one at all  
BG3: fwding u mine  
BG1: not necessary, sweetie, but thnx  
R1: has anyone else read it yet?  
BG3: i refuse  
R2:oh, ur gonna wanna read this  
BG2: ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^  
R1: ho shit  
R2: no shit, right?  
R1: does B know?  
R2: thatd explain the flight to hawaii  
R1: hes gonna need more than a super protecting him  
R2: srsly? U didnt see this coming?  
R1: wtf?? youre not ok with this?  
R2: well yeah. All that pigtail pulling when they were younger.  
R1: they literally tried to murder each other. That doesnt rule out dating for you?  
R2: thatd be a bit hypocritical of me  
R1: D is too young  
R2: hes legal  
BG3: ok, nt shipping this myself  
BG3: ds D even no RR has outed hm 2 us?  
BG3: bc thts typical 4 RR  
BG3: n if D dsnt no wht he sgned up 2, abt 2 get a frnt row seat 2 the “RR always thinks he knows best” show  
R2: wait, are we counting this as D’s coming out to the family?  
R2: because you all owe me $$$  
BG2: he came out to b last year  
R2: i know, but not to us  
R1: im with steph, this isnt good  
R2: theyve both changed a lot in the last couple of years  
R1: is that why theyre both fired from WE for fighting in the lobby?  
R1: i actually have to go into the office tomorrow to prove that B raised at least one non-crazy kid  
R2: boo hoo  
R2: if i was alive i’d be running the fucking foundation by now  
R2: you can suck it up and put a suit on for a day  
R1: the shit, j? Why would you be running WF?  
R2: bc unlike the rest of you philistines, i know my tosca from my tennessee williams  
R2: i’d smooze the shit out of those gala-going pricks and have funding for a dozen community theatres before the week was out  
R2: theyd fucking lap me up  
R2: you know, with R’s 3 & 5 out of the picture, and OG whining all the way, I’m in running to be the actual favourite  
R2: bringing Lian over for a baseball game next weekend  
R2: boom. Grandkid. Favourite.  
R1: shes not ur kid  
R2: basically my stepkid  
R1: B doesnt want to co-grandparent with Olly  
BG2: ur wrong, im the favourite  
R2: fair. im 2nd favourite  
BG2: :)  
R1: off topic  
R2: ur just jealous  
R1: i heard D & T came to blows. U cant support a relationship like that  
R2: … ok, no  
BG1: they didn’t  
BG1: I’ve checked the footage. It’s some pretty nasty stuff they’re saying to each other, but it doesn’t get physical  
BG1: where did you even hear that from?  
R1: receptionist at WE  
BG1: the redhead?  
R2: r u even fuckin surprised?  
R1: shut up  
R1: he's nice  
BG1: he's a drama llama  
R2: no wonder u get on  
R1: ~~screenshot of higher up the chat, zoomed to show "R1: shut up"~~  
BG3: so they hd a big fght, thn RR announces theyre secretly married?  
BG3: manipulative  
R2: ok, also not great. but if the demon brat doesnt know that about replacement by now...  
R1: theyve both been lying to us for months!  
BG1: which i think is what they’re actually fighting about, not  
R1: not what?  
BG1: Drake Industries. Tim’s just filed to demerge it from WE  
BG1: he’s going solo  
BG2: bye bye birdie


	28. In which Tim has a cathartic conversation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, I'm afraid. I looked at pulling in some elements from the next one, but that would make this one very much a one-two punch, whereas instead the next chapter has some sad and some happy!

He packs his bags to leave Gotham.

He unpacks them, puts underwear in this time, and repacks.

He unpacks again, takes out two pairs of boxer shorts and three pairs of socks, and manages to squeeze another laptop in.

He takes out the rest of his socks to make space for an external hard drive. He can buy more socks wherever he goes, right? As long as he’s got his phone he can just Amazon Prime anything he hasn’t packed. Besides, he'll have to ditch stuff as he goes to make sure Bruce hasn't put any trackers on it.

The important thing is to take Damian’s advice and get out of Gotham.

Oh, toothpaste!

Evening is drawing in by the time Tim has packed to his own satisfaction. He puts on his Red Robin costume. It’s a little tight, and that’s the combination of a reduced patrol schedule and Damian’s insistence on his eating at least three meals a day. If he’s honest with himself, it’s a nice feeling. Having a little meat on his bones makes him feel cared for, like he’s carrying a bit of Damian with him.

He’s going to miss this apartment. It wasn’t meant to be anywhere special, just a nearby base for college when it wasn’t convenient to get back to the Nest or the Manor, but he spent more time here than he’d intended. Damian made it into a home for him.

The next lease he signs is going to be on a home for him _and_ Damian.

Finding somewhere to live isn’t going to be easy; he’s plowing a lot of money into getting DI off the ground, which doesn’t leave much ready cash for somewhere with a pet-friendly lease in a city like Berkeley. He’s not sure which animals Damian will want to bring, but even if he leaves his current menagerie behind it’s only a matter of time before he adopts something new.

It’d be nice to adopt something together. Tim always wanted a parrot when he was younger, something he could teach to speak so he wouldn’t feel so alone in the house when his parents were away.

That’s a trip down memory lane he doesn’t want to take right now.

Still, he hovers in the kitchen, replaying memories of Damian’s eighteenth birthday. The buzz of alcohol from dinner, coffee, talking, standing so close. Fingers brushing, heads tilting, his thumb on Damian's lip, the ghost of Damian's breath over his cheeks. If Dick hadn’t come in that night, would they have kissed? Would things be different now if they had?

He snaps a picture of the spot on his phone.

He can’t risk hanging around any longer. If Batman comes here, he’s as good as lost the fight before it’s started. He leaves a note for the cleaners, takes his bag and locks up the apartment.

He drives Redbird over the police precinct and grapples up to the roof. The Bat Signal isn’t on tonight. 

This time last year it was on every night, but now Ra’s has scaled back it’s only four or five nights a week. The city is settling back into its old rhythms, where Batman could take a night off to spend with his kids. Nights when everything lined up perfectly - gangsters took their molls to the movies, Arkham inmates held pizza night sacred, muggers took the night off to watch the latest Game of Thrones - and Batman and Robin put their feet up. Even the police need a break to catch up on paperwork sometimes.

He lets Gordon know he’s going to use the signal to call Batman, and that he’d appreciate privacy. There's no security up on the roof, no cameras, no audio: the police need plausible deniability when it comes to taking criminals to court.

“Everything alright, son?”

Red Robin grimaces. “I’m alright. I don’t know if he’s going to be. I’m sorry. I know this is going to make your lives harder. He’s going to be impossible.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t appreciate a neutral third party?”

“I’m sure. But… after… he’s going to need you. He’s going to need your experience as a fellow father.”

Commissioner Gordon sighs heavily. “Alright, fine. Get it over with.”

Tim sits on the roof, leaning against the Bat Signal. He pushes the cowl back. The Gotham breeze lifts his hair and tickles his forehead with it. He takes a deep breath, savouring the city. Nowhere else in the world smells quite like Gotham, this specific mix of traffic fumes and ocean air and split beer and stale cigarettes and garbage and gunpowder and that really specific wet dog smell the city only gets on dry nights that Tim’s never really figured out.

Gotham is his home in a way it’s never really been Damian’s. Gotham was his childhood playground, his only friend when he had none. Gotham gave him heroes and Gotham made him a hero.

There’s a heavy tread on the roof behind him.

“Gordon. I don’t have time-”

Tim steps out in front of the light. 

“Red Robin.”

“Tim. Please. I chose this roof because it’s the one place in the city I know we’re not being monitored.”

“You want to talk.”

Tim nods. “Please. I want to have this conversation with Bruce."

"You could have come home."

"Could I?" Tim frowns at him. "Take the cowl off. Please.” He crosses his arms over his chest and waits.

Bruce concedes the point and pushes it back, but Tim came see from his posture and expression he's still talking to Batman.

“Robin-”

“Damian.” Tim pushes, nudges, reaches for Bruce.

“Damian has given me his version of events.” Batman doesn't even let up on the growl.

Tim bites his lip. He doesn’t know what Damian’s told Bruce, but he’d be surprised if his husband got more than a couple of sentences in before losing his temper. Alfred’s probably summoning plasterers to the mansion as they speak.

“I don’t know what Damian told you. I don’t know what _Talia_ told you,” Tim says. “I wish I’d told you, or that we’d told you together.”

“I trusted you.” Batman moves, and he’s right in Tim’s face. Tim holds his ground. There’s something increasingly fitting about having to have the rest of the this conversation with the bat on Bruce’s chest. “I trusted you with him!”

“What do you want me to say, Bruce? That I was weak? I _was_ weak. There were three options open to me, and I took the easy one. I didn’t kill Ra’s, because I didn’t want to _disappoint_ you. I didn’t let him kill me, though believe me, I thought about it. I was so tired, Bruce. He hadn’t just been torturing me for days. He’s been setting this up for years, keeping me exhausted, keeping me on the verge of breakdown, so when he placed the choice before me I was too tired to resist any more.” 

He wishes Bruce would step back so Tim could see his face. He wants to know if his mentor even blinked at the thought of Tim’s death. It scares him though, that Batman might not have. That he is past caring about Tim that way.

“I’m sorry I was too weak to let him kill me,” Tim spits, but there’s still no visible reaction. “I’m sorry I thought about the impact that would have on Damian, being drip fed lies about how it would be his fault if he rejected me. How everything is his fault. Because he’d take that and he’d try and use it to make himself _better_ and it would twist and burn inside him and _destroy_ him, Bruce. You think I don’t know, holding my father after he died because I was Robin? You were always so worried I’d be motivated by revenge, but you’d be amazed how much farther you can go with guilt behind you.”

He stares at the bat. He’s never hated a symbol more.

He remembers the blood seeping into his tights, cooling, congealing. He remembers pressing his face to that symbol so he wouldn’t have to look at the ruin of his father’s body.

“Maybe my only legacy as Robin is the pants. I’m okay with that. I don’t need Robin any more, not now I have Damian. He loves me, Bruce, like no one has ever loved me before. He’s not like you; he loves with his whole self, nothing held back. His love is unconditional. Passionate. He’s my world now, Bruce.”

That does make Bruce step away so they can look each other in the face again. Tim expects anger, or sadness, or _something_ , but he isn’t braced for the pity he sees in Bruce’s eyes. He think Tim is fooling himself. He thinks Damian doesn’t love him.

“You of all people know how dangerous it is to hang your life on another person,” Bruce says. “This won’t last.”

“He’ll die, you mean.”

“No-”

“You’ll sacrifice him to the mission, like everyone else.”

“He’s my _son_.” There is the rage, breaking through the facade. The rage that’s under Bruce, under Batman. The rage that wants to take on the universe. The rage born of watching his parents bleed out. Tim knows that rage _personally_. It’s a relief to finally confront it in Bruce. “You can’t take him from me!”

“He’s my _husband_ ,” Tim shoots back.

Everything is burning in his chest now and it’s only a matter of time before the tears come and he doesn’t care any more. He doesn’t care about making this better. He doesn’t care if Bruce is okay with it. There’s been so much left unsaid between them for so long and now Bruce is here, Bruce is listening, and Tim can’t stop the words pouring out.

“I tried to be your son, Bruce! I tried so fucking hard! I did everything you asked, anticipated your every need, kept you from hurting yourself. I’m gave up an internal organ to bring you back, and you couldn’t even say you were proud of me. I gave up my parents. I gave up my girlfriend. I gave you everything, but I couldn’t _fix_ you. Jason died, and you just stopped being able to be a parent, no matter how hard any of us tried.”

“I wasn’t yours to f-” 

Tim hears Bruce talking, but the words keep coming. He’s bottled this up for too long to stop now.

“Ra’s found this so easy to set up. You left him every opening he needed to distract you, to draw you away, to let Damian come to me instead. He’s got so much love to give, and you treated him like a cuckoo in your nest for years. You kept him at arm’s length, let Dick take the lead. You’ve been there for less than half of Damian’s birthdays. You’re not his father, Bruce. You’ve barely even been a mentor to him.

“I know it won’t last forever. I know that better than anyone. But I can’t live like you, Bruce. I’ve had to fight for every scrap of love and attention in my life and now there’s Damian, who gives it so freely. He is the water in my desert. I will take every second he gives me and hold it precious, and if it ends, then at least I was loved _once_. Nothing will be left unsaid between us. There will be no regrets.”

He hadn’t known how unloved he was until he was loved, and it’s made him greedy for it.

“I… have nothing left to say,” Tim says, and knows it’s true. “I’m sorry this has hurt you, Bruce. If you can find it in yourself to be happy we’re not hurting each other, to believe we’re not hurting each other, then maybe there’s a way forward. If not, then I guess we'll leave you behind.”

If there’s one thing he’s learnt from Bruce it’s how to make an exit. He takes two steps back and with a little jump backwards drops off the edge of the roof.

By the time Bruce makes the edge of the roof he’s already on Redbird, roaring away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruce: Shit, is this how people feel when I do this? I never got to say _my_ piece!


	29. In which the repercussions of lying to their loved ones start to hit home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fiddling around a bit with the posting schedule since (a) the last chapter was a dinky one and (b) it makes more sense to me to have a mon-wed-fri-mon week than a mon-fri-sat-mon week with all these short, choppy chapters and interludes.

It’s close to 3 am when Tim pulls up outside Dick’s apartment in Bludhaven. Tim hasn’t had a reply to his email (Dick's more of a phone guy) but Dick’s his big brother, and Tim has faith he’ll support his little birds.

There’s a diner opposite Dick’s place. He’s still in costume, but Tim is past caring. He _needs_ coffee more than he needs the family to notice he's not on a plane to Hawaii or a bus to New York. He threw up those smokescreens to draw attention to the fact he's running; hopefully it'll buy him a few days before anyone notices he hasn't run far.

He texts Dick his location and orders a twelve egg triple bypass omelette, with a side of fruit and cinnamon rolls, and a bottomless coffee. Now the hard part is out of the way he finds he’s starving.

Tim is on his third coffee and has consumed half of the omelette, finally feeling human again, when Nightwing strides in. Tim waves at the opposite side of the booth and pushes a cinnamon roll towards him.

Dick picks it up and turns it around in his hands. “Why Bludhaven?”

“B won’t look for me here, not at first.” Tim scoops up another forkful of egg. “I put a couple of false leads in place,” he says with his mouth full. “I don’t expect anyone to follow them, but it should give the impression I’m going further afield.”

“Running away?” Dick’s voice is carefully neutral.

“You… got my email, right?”

Dick nods.

Tim swallows. “I'm sorry I didn't call, but I was trying to tell everyone at once so no one heard through the grapevine. I need somewhere to crash, just for a few days. Everything is very fresh for B right now, but once he has time to process the news I think he’ll understand why we’ve made the choices we have recently.”

He takes a sip of coffee, lets is swirl around his mouth while he feels around his own mind for the next words to say.

“It’s nice that you still feel able to ask me for favours when you’ve been lying to me for months.”

Tim chokes on his coffee. Some comes out of his nose, but Dick’s face remains stony under the domino.

Tim puts the cup down on the table and grabs a napkin.

“I haven’t been lying to you,” he says around the tissue. “The only person we lied to was Batman.”

“Seriously?”

Tim risks looking at Dick. His childhood idol has his arms crossed tightly over his chest, obscuring the bird, and his eyes are tight with pain.

Tim feels sick, though that might have something to do with the sheer volume of food he’s consumed.

“I don’t know what to say,” Tim says, staring down at his hands. “I fucked up. I should have told you what was going on. We should have told everybody. I thought if we kept it a secret for long enough I’d figure out a way to tell people that would make people happy for us, that there’d be some magical moment where everything would be okay and no one would mind, but everyone’s pissed we kept it a secret for so long instead.”

“Are you really surprised by that?”

The last hope Tim had of reassurance dissolves. It was one thing to face off with Bruce, but this... this is different. He doesn't _want_ to hurt Dick.

It's not fair. It's not fair that he's worked so hard and everything hurts and everyone's hurting. He tried so _hard_ to stay small and quiet and unobtrusive, to keep everything private, and isn't that what people want from him? You can't hurt people if you don't impinge on them, they can't be mad at you if they don't notice you. Those are the rules he grew up with, and it's not fair that they don't work any more.

He wants his brother to smile and say it's okay, he forgives Tim, he's happy to put aside his pain because Tim asks him too.

Dick stays quiet.

Tim buries his face in his hands. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I thought I did, I told him I did and he trusted me.”

"Robin?" Dick clarifies.

Tim nods, keeping his face in his hands, and says very quietly, “I love him. Isn’t it supposed to be easy, if you’re in love? How have I fucked this up so badly?”

“Maybe that’s a sign? Just saying.”

It’s really not what Tim wants to hear right now, and he bites back a bubble of irritation. Dick has every right to be pissed with him. But maybe it's leftover adrenaline from the fight with Bruce, or maybe the old wounds Damian reopened in the lobby are still raw, or something about Dick's self-righteous martyrdom convinces Tim that his older brother is being a hypocrite again (because if he really thinks he and Barbara are fooling _anyone_ at this point Tim has a reality check for both of them)... whatever it is, the bubble bobs back to the surface and Tim lets it.

“Maybe the reason I didn’t tell anyone before is because I didn’t want to hear shit like that," Tim snaps. Dick rears back, startled by the sudden change in Tim's tone. "I know what people think of us, the way people still think we’re feuding teenagers. _You’re_ the one who spent years trying to force us together, and now we are, you’re...” Tim flaps a hand, too frustrated to find the words any more. “It’s not like we’ve even been that subtle! This is meant to be a family of detectives, and no one cared to even look at what was under their noses. We shouldn’t have had to tell you!”

“So, what? It’s my fault you lied to me?”

“I never lied!” Tim’s glares at him. “I didn’t tell you. It’s different.”

“It’s hard to tell the difference from where I’m sitting,” Dick says. “I love you. I love both of you. That neither of you felt like you could trust me... “

He breaks off and looks away, staring at the diner counter. When he starts talking again the words come with little hitches of breath between them, chopped into fragments of emotions.

“You used to call me when you were having a bad night. When you needed someone to help you hold the dark at bay. I always picked up, no matter where I was or what I was doing. I thought... I thought you knew you could tell me anything, I thought you felt comfortable telling me everything, but you kept something this big and this important a secret. Don’t tell me we should have guessed; you’d have been furious at us for prying if we had and you know it. If Talia hadn't forced the issue you'd still be lying to me now.

“I don’t know what to think about why you didn’t feel like you could tell me. I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t stop. Either what you’re going through is so much worse than your bad days you couldn’t voice it, or our relationship is a lot more one way than I thought. I’m here for you to offload on, but you take your joy elsewhere.”

“It’s not either,” Tim says. “Christ, N, you think I didn’t want to tell you? To celebrate this whole big, amazing thing that was happening in my life? The whole thing is a mess. And a lot of that is on me, I know that. I know I’m bad at communicating. I’m _working_ on it.”

“And you think because you’re working on it that absolves you from actually doing it? You say you wanted to tell me, but really, honestly, Red, how many times did you actually think about doing it? Picking up that phone. Sending that email. Did you think about what you were going to say to me?” Dick spreads his hands. “Say it now. Tell me everything you wanted to tell me.”

Tim opens his mouth, and closes it again.

“I’m sorry. I love you, but I can’t be happy for you right now.” Dick pushes himself up to standing. “I can’t support you right now.”

Tim watches him go.

#

Damian has marginally less experience at sneaking out that his siblings, but each of them felt it their duty, at some point in his adolescence, to demonstrate their preferred route out of the mansion.

Dick’s room has a glass panel over the door. If one presses in just the right place, it swings up, and the reinforced light fittings in the corridor allow one to shimmy along the ceiling. At the end of the corridor the air vent allows a slim vigilante to squeeze into the outside world, and then one can swing and flip through the copper beech trees that line the long drive from the road to the mansion.

Jason’s window is alarmed, but careful scraping of the plaster around the frame means that with the right pressure the whole frame can be removed. You have to be careful not to pull on the wire that connects it to the security system, but if you put the dresser underneath you can prop it up while you squeeze through. Slip it back into position and make the leap to the tree outside. It’s an old horse chestnut, most of its trunk long since rotted away inside the bark and the rest carefully carved so you can shimmy through the inside and slip out between the crawling roots.

Tim rarely got into the kind of trouble that got him banished to his room, and when he did he usually made it out of the mansion before punishment could kick in, banishing himself to a safe house or the Tower. He’d given Damian a document confusingly entitled “Marauder's Map” last year, showing all of the manor’s current secret passageways (disappointingly few if you exclude those that lead to the cave). His particularly favoured route for disappearing before the consequences of his actions became widely known was through the Batcave; if you head towards the waterfall there’s a corner where the cameras have a blindspot. Scale the wall and there’s a crack in the ceiling, scale that and eventually you come out halfway up an old well shaft. The grate over the top is normally kept locked, but narrow wrists can reach through and pick the padlock.

Cass’s room is on the top floor. The artfully panelled ceiling is nailed to the joists that support the attic, except in one place, where it is screwed on, instead. All of the attic rooms are connected, and it is a short, dark, dusty trip to the garage once one is in. It takes patience and a steady hand to remove the screws silently, and Cass made him repeat the trick over and over until he achieved it to her satisfaction. Unlike her brothers, her escape route remains a secret from Bruce, because she has never had to use it. His sister his the apple of his father’s eye - of all of their eyes - and has been neither grounded nor benched. She just likes making the others jump by appearing behind them unexpectedly.

His sibling’s escape routes are of little use to Damian now, except in that they tell him which ways will be blocked to him. His door frame has no window, his window has no pressure points, his ceiling has no panels and the cave is so far out of his reach it might as well be in a fantasy land.

Steph has never lived at the manor, though she’s slept over often enough she has a preferred guest room. She told Damian if he ever needed an out, to call her and have her make a distraction.

It’s tempting, but after father came back from patrol he’d swept Damian’s room for electronics, weapons, lock picks, and all other gadgets.

Damian sat on the edge of the bed, dressed for sleep but still as wide awake as he had been when Bruce had left the first time. His fingers dug deep into the coverlets, and he didn’t bother keep the scowl from his face, but otherwise he behaved.

Compliance is the safest option. It buys him the most time. It buys Timothy time.

Father had stood in the doorway a moment, looking back, and Damian thought maybe he was going to say something, tell him something, share something with his son, but then his gaze had fallen on Titus.

The treacherous animal had trotted after Batman, eager for his accustomed early morning walk.

Damian had kept his mouth shut, let the old dog follow familiar routines. Titus had looked back, confused as to why Damian wasn’t following, but Batman closed the door before the dog returned to him. He didn’t look at Damian.

Tim better be making good use of the time Damian is buying with his meek compliance.

Well, not meek, maybe.

But he’s compliant.

He’s not sure how long has passed when there is a knock at the door. He knows immediately it’s not father, who hasn’t knocked once.

“Enter, Pennyworth.”

Alfred is preceded by the bitter smell of turkish coffee and hot, smokey cumin and paprika. Damian’s mouth starts to water despite himself. The breakfast tray Alfred places across his knees has coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice, shakshuka and hot buttered toast.

He can’t blame the chilli vapour for the tears in his eyes when Alfred takes a seat on the bed beside him, and he leans against the older man’s shoulder for a moment while he re-composes himself.

“Master Damian,” Alfred says, and sighs. “Oh, Damian.”

Damian picks up the orange juice with both hands and holds the glass tightly.

“Did you know?” Damian asks.

“I had my suspicions,” Alfred says. “Your father may have every inch of this house wired and bugged, but I do your laundry.”

Damian wrinkles his nose. “I apologise.”

“This has been a home for teenage boys for many decades now. I was even one myself, once.”

“Still.” Damian heaves a sigh. He puts the orange juice down, undrunk, and picks up the coffee instead. Black as night, thick as mud, and bitter as yesterday’s fights, he has to swallow past the burn as it curdles down his throat. He is instantly, irrevocably awake. “You didn’t say anything to father?”

“Over the last few years, your father and I have had several conversations about privacy, and respecting it. He has shown immense improvement in that area.”

“And we’ve undone that.” Damian starts picking at his eggs. “More collateral damage.”

Alfred chuckles. Damian frowns at him.

“Every few years, your father comes to me and says ‘there is too much collateral damage, Alfred’. ‘I can’t put any more lives at risk, Alfred’. ‘I must work alone, Alfred’. I could set the manor clocks by it, Master Damian. This year, though, he has been bracing himself for your departure, and I think for the first time he is confronting the fact that he may not have a choice about working alone. He is torn between using this turn of events to keep you here, and using it to justify pushing everyone away.”

“Timothy thinks mother may have influenced his reaction.”

“Almost certainly. _That woman_ \- apologies, Master Damian, for my tone-” Damian waves it away “-stands to benefit if she can isolate him.”

“But you won’t let her, will you?” Damian wonders if he's playing into his mother’s hands.

“Rest assured, Master Damian, your father is as safe in my hands as he has ever been.” Alfred’s tone is wry, but he looks down at his hands with a small frown. He is doubting himself, and Damian hates himself for doing this to Alfred. “Do you know, Master Damian, how isolating it is to be orphaned? He lost his parents, yes, but he also lost his friends. Children are not equipped to manage each other’s trauma. Their parents kept them away from him, as though his tragedy might be transmittable. I did everything I could to keep him company, but I could not replace his whole social circle.”

“But he has that again, now.” Damian slips a hand around Alfred’s, marvelling at how small his grandfather’s hands look in his, how old, how delicate. He knows how much weight the family places on his shoulders every day, but they remain unbowed. “Without you there’d be no Dick, no Jason, no Tim, no Cass. Without you he would have quit the Justice League after their first mission. Without you he wouldn’t have coffee with Gordon, or pie with the Kents, or awkward rooftop exchanges with Kyle.” Damian sighs. “Do you think she’d ever give him another chance?”

“I think she has better sense than that, sadly,” Alfred says. He squeezes Damian’s hand. “Though I am disappointed to have missed your nuptials, I’m glad you and Master Timothy have found happiness together.”

A lump forms in Damian’s throat, and he can’t confirm or deny Alfred’s expectation of happiness.

“Now, Master Damian,” Alfred says, letting go of his hand and patting him on the knee. “Finish your breakfast and get some sleep. I shall make sure the menagerie is well cared for.”

“It shouldn’t be up to you. They’re my animals. I do not wish to shirk my responsibilities. To burden you.”

“You are never a burden, Master Damian.” Alfred stands. “At least it is summer. It’s pleasant weather to walk Titus, my namesake is happy prowling outside, Batcow has plenty of grazing space and, well, I haven’t see Bandit in several days, so presumably he’s keeping himself entertained.” He pauses, gaze sweeping around the room. “Perhaps in the chimneys, which have been recently swept.”

“I shall alert you if I hear anything in the flues.”

“Oh, you needn’t bother yourself, Master Damian. I shall be in the rose garden for most of today, out of earshot and eyeline of this side of the manor until your father returns from Wayne Enterprises this afternoon.”

It’s an enigmatic farewell, and Damian dwells on it as he eats his eggs.

When he has finished his breakfast in its entirety, he places the tray by the door. It was a good meal to start a day on, not too heavy, but sustaining. The turkish coffee is still gritty in his back teeth, even after eating everything else, but it’s given him a burst of energy that he calculates will last for some hours yet.

Alfred intends for him to leave. Damian doesn’t know how Alfred divined his plan, but really, there are no secrets from him. If Batman is the world’s greatest detective, Alfred is the universe’s.

He eyes light upon the chimney. The recently swept chimney, with the stack on the side of the roof opposite the rose garden where Alfred couldn’t be expected to see him.

He grabs his sketchpad and starts writing. They have kept too many secrets for him to risk simply disappearing; his father must know that his actions are his and his alone.


	30. Interlude: Pennyworth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alfred PoV chapter! I've been trying to figure out how old Alfred is by this point (why hasn't the batfam let him retire??), so I'm going to inflict some maths on you.
> 
> We know Tim was 3 when Dick's parents died and 13 when he became Robin. We know Dick was fired as Robin at 18 around when he went off to university. Dick's usually portrayed as either 9 or 12 when Bruce takes him in - 12 works better because it gives Jason more time as Robin. Bruce is in his early twenties when he takes Dick in, and generally the fact Alfred has had a life, including a stint in the military and on the stage, before becoming a butler and clearly serves the family for several years before the Waynes are killed, you have to assume he's at least mid thirties when he becomes 8 year old Bruce's guardian.
> 
> Where it starts to fall apart is when Tim is 17, because he's 17 for at least three years - when Kon dies, over the course of 52 and OYL, when Bruce dies, when Bruce comes back, and then he gets rebooted to 15 just to be extra irritating (because DC wanted a 29 year old Bruce and you get this Robin log-jam), and then 17-18 post-Rebirth. Even more irritatingly, Damian goes from 8 to 13 in this same period.
> 
> Initially, I was leaning towards the shortest possible interpretation of the age gap between Tim and Damian, which is 4 years, but this means that Bruce takes Dick in, then promptly buggers off to the Middle East to hang out with Ra's and get Talia pregnant, which is a poor show on Bruce's part! We know Damian is 10 when Bruce dies and Dick makes him Robin, and Tim is (surprise surprise) 17 at that point. However, that makes life awkward for everything I've already written in terms of Tim being at college at the same time as any of his friends, most of whom presumably started at 18. So instead, I've plumped for a roughly Rebirth age gap, where Damian was 13 when Tim was 18.
> 
> In conclusion: Damian is 18, Tim is 23, which makes Jason 26 and Dick 32. Bruce is mid-40s, and therefore Alfred is probably in his late 70s/early 80s.

Alfred finds the letters, neatly folded and labelled, on Damian’s desk. The breakfast tray is placed neatly by the door, ready for collection, and the only other sign of disturbance is a little soot around the fireplace where the boy made his egress.

Alfred puts the cup of tea he brought up on Damian’s bedside table. He’d hoped the boy wouldn’t be here to drink it, but he’d brought it up for appearances.

He’d like to sit down, but after a morning kneeling in the garden his rheumatism is deep in his joints. There’s nowhere to sit in the room with a high back or arms, to make it easy for him to get up again, so he stands in the middle of the carpet and slowly unfolds the paper Damian has addressed for his eyes only.

Most of the paper is taken up with a charcoal sketch. Damian has drawn the two of them as they were earlier, Damian’s head on Alfred’s shoulder, breakfast tray on his lap. It’s an image of love and heartbreak, two generations brought together in understanding, in the domesticity and fraught tension of crossed thresholds. The contrasts are underscored by the heavy shading Damian has used.

“Your support means the world to me. You have always steered me true, and to have your faith in this gives me the courage to keep moving forwards. You are the moral compass of this family, and where you point I must trust that the others with follow.

“I will not muddle my message with too many words. Suffice to say, I love you, I wish only the best for you, I apologise for any burden I have placed upon you, and I will repay you for your kindness tenfold.

“Obediently, faithfully, respectfully, kindly yours,  
Your grandson  
Damian Al Ghul Wayne Drake”

It takes Alfred’s breath away to see Damian’s name written out like that, with Timothy’s surname so casually appended. Damian’s handwriting shifts slightly on the last word, his pen is pressed a little harder into the page, as though he’s still learning to write it.

Too few people have been kind to Talia’s son in his lifetime. Too few people paid Jack and Janet’s son the attention he deserved. As long as they are kind to each other, attend to each other, it is hard for Alfred to see where Timothy and Damian can go wrong. 

It’s no guarantee, of course. There has been more than one women over the course of Alfred’s life he thought would be the one he spent his life with, but he remains an inveterate bachelor. And yet, each of them made his life a little richer for their passing through it.

Marie Demarque, who gave him his daughter, Julie. 

Leslie Thompkins, who gifted him his son, Bruce. 

Joanna Clark, who claimed her child was his son.

Maggie Page, who… well, who he didn’t really have anything in common with, but had been surprisingly sanguine about being kidnapped by Poison Ivy, so he’d let the dalliance linger on rather longer than he should have.

Instead of a wife he’s had a family; children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. He loves them all unconditionally, and it wounds him that for so many of them he is the first to do that. He’s watched the bonds between his charges grow and stretch and strengthen. He’s heard his charges vehemently insist the bonds have broken, but they remain, underneath it all, and when one of them is in pain the whole family bleeds. 

And, eventually, the whole family heals.

Alfred folds the letter back up and puts it in his breast pocket. He leaves the others for Bruce to find. Time heals all wounds, even the self-inflicted ones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alfred's ladies:  
> Marie Demarque, who Alfred met and got pregnant during WW2 (now that'll screw up the timeline!) is the mother of Tuppence, aka Julie Pennyworth.  
> Leslie Thompkins and Alfred had a long term affair while he was raising Bruce that occasionally hinted to still be ongoing, and she provided a lot of support and practical help in making sure Alfred could claim guardianship of Bruce.  
> Joanna Clark appears in a Nightwing mini, and blackmails Alfred by claiming he's the father of her son.  
> Maggie Page turns up in the Animated Series and is clearly Alfred's girlfriend in a sort of "isn't it hilarious that old people date" way. She gets turned into a plant by Poison Ivy, gets better, and just plows on with life.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry this chapter is more note than chapter!


	31. In which Tim is reminded his civilian friends have opinions as well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are on the up! People's feelings are hurt, but not everyone's world revolves around the batfam.
> 
> (anyone else remember that time Young Justice were based in what was essentially the Overlook from The Shining?)

It’s a long journey to the Catskills - he ditches Redbird at the diner, steals one of Jason's cars for the next hundred miles, swaps it for a taxi, takes a night bus for a bit, and picks up another motorbike for cash in hand from a dodgy chop shop - but Tim’s racing mind does a better job at keeping him alert and his eyes on the road than any nap or caffeinated beverage. The mountains are beautiful in the pre-dawn light, glowing around the edges. By the time he pulls up in front of Sallinger’s Resort Hotel the sun is well and truly risen; the forest steams as the dew lifts and the dawn chorus is petering out.

Tim figures if people are going to look for him, they’ll try Titans Tower and they’ll try Young Justice’s Happy Harbour base, they’ll try the Kent’s farm and Bart, Owen and Thaddeus’s place, they’ll try Dick and Jason and Steph and Cass, but this old, abandoned, rundown hotel in the mountains? It’s a very long way down the list, if anyone even remembers it at all.

It’s still in Wayne Enterprises’ portfolio, still hooked up for utilities and phone but otherwise receiving the bare minimum of maintenance. He briefly wishes he’d transitioned it to Drake Industries when he had the chance, but any DI property will be on Batman’s radar right now. It’s safer this way.

He parks the bike in the underground garage, next to Bart’s spaceship (does he even remember he still has it? After all this blows over, Tim’s calling him and they’re going to go joyriding like they did as kids). He carries his bags through to the lounge, where Young Justice used to prep for missions. Tim’s bedroom was on the ground floor, which had been a source of amusement to the others. He spent plenty of time lurking in the garrets, but ultimately, the ground floor rooms had the best access for sneaking in and out. Mostly he’d used it to freak out his friends by appearing behind in rooms them without using the door. Simpler times.

He sets up his laptop on top of the pool table, facing a blank wall. He runs through a couple of proxy servers and a firewall, then skypes Tam.

She is distinctly unimpressed with him, and wastes to time explaining to him why, in some detail.

“I went to work as normal and my keycard didn’t work, and Sofia on reception had to explain to me that I no longer worked there. Do you know how mortifying that was? I’m in a Gotham Grind, trying to do damage control for a company I didn’t even know I worked for.”

“You signed the new contract.”

“You told me it was an internal accounting issue!”

“It was. And now it’s…” Tim sighs. “It’s another thing I fucked up, and you’re another person I’ve hurt.”

“I’m not hurt, Tim. I’m embarrassed. I’ll be _hurt_ if I find out I’m unemployed because you and your ‘brother’ had a fight.”

It’s the way she puts emphasis on brother that gives Tim pause.

“You know he’s… not my brother?”

“I know you fucked him in your office,” Tam says, “which, by the way, thanks for doing that while i was less than ten feet away. I've eaten _lunch_ off that desk! What’s Drake Industries’ code of conduct? Can we put not doing that on it?”

“We can put whatever you like on it. We’ll probably need to outsource HR to start with, while we’re growing. Can you source someone for that?”

Tam pulls out a copy of her contract.

“Hmm,” she says. “Does the assistant to the head of Research and Development read tenders for HR provision? That doesn’t sound like something in that job description. Let me check. Hmm. No. No, it’s not in here. I mean, I’m just an assistant, but to me, that sounds like the sort of thing a vice-president does, or a chief operating officer.”

Tim can’t suppress the relieved smile that tugs at his lips.

“COO Fox,” he says. “I has a good ring to it.”

“It does,” Tam agrees.

“Head of our Gotham office.”

“Our office, is it? And precisely where is our office?”

“Wherever you want.”

Tam drums her fingers against the side of a Gotham Grind mug. “I need to see a budget,” she says. “I need to see projections, I need to see our client list, I need to see _everything_. What does Drake Industries even _do_ , Tim?”

“Facilitate international client-investor relationships while building a portfolio in developing technologies with an emphasis on communication and information.” It’s surprisingly easy to rattle off, and for the first time Tim feels genuinely excited about the project. This is his civilian area of expertise. This is what his parents raised him to do. “I’ll send you everything,” he says. “Find us a small office in Gotham and another in San Francisco. Eco-rated, renewable energy, but let’s not fall into that start-up bro culture of games rooms and craft beer on tap.”

Tam laughs. “You know we’ll probably have to lease somewhere from Wayne Enterprises in Gotham?”

Tim wrinkles his nose. “Do what you can,” he says. “I have faith in you, COO.”

“I have absolutely none in you, CEO,” she returns. “At least, not until you sort out whatever it is going on with you and Damian. I was going to call you out on being checked out at work, before, you know. Now…” She shrugs. “You know you’ve fucked up and I’m not going to rub your nose in it, but you need to get your head back on straight quickly if you want to launch DI. This can’t be a side project.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“Drake Industries better, or it’ll be Fox Industries before the year is out.”

“Put that in your revised contract, and I’ll put my name to it.”

“Good. Sort your life out, Tim.” And she hangs up on him.

He feels better for talking to Tam. Having at least one person in his life who knows what they want and how to get it, and is willing to tell him precisely how he’s getting in the way of that, is its own kind of relief.

He emails her the files he promised, along with a suggestion that they hire the same EAP provider as Wayne Enterprises.

Tim considers his next move. Bed is a serious option, as is breakfast. He still needs to call his friends to share the news with them, and he should follow up with his family having fucked it up so badly with Dick. He’d really like to speak to Damian, too, but he doesn’t know if Damian’s found his way out of the manor yet.

Before he can make up his mind, his screen lights up with an incoming call, surprising him into an involuntary finger spasm, which just so happens to click “accept”.

“The shit was that, Timmy?”

“Bernard?”

His friend’s face fills the screen, wide black bands on either side giving away the fact he’s on his phone. Judging by the tiles behind him, he’s in a bathroom.

“That fight! That was not sexual tension and flirty banter and part of the plan. That shit was real. You guys were fighting to the death there, do not bullshit me, Timmy, by saying otherwise.”

“How do you even know?” Tim asks, staring at his laptop with undisguised unhappiness.

“It’s on YouTube, Tim.” Bernard rolls his slightly pixelated eyes. 

Shit, already? He knew people had been watching, and in this day and age it wasn’t a massive surprise someone had filmed it, but the idea of anyone in the world being able to watch and rewatch his shame sends a wave of nausea over him.

“Tim?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose.” Tim opens another window and opens YouTube.

“Don’t vanity google it, Timmy. It’s brutal to watch.”

“But you made yourself watch it all the way through, just forced yourself,” Tim says drily.

“Hey, what else are interns for? The Daily Planet wanted pull quotes for the gossip column, but yours truly persuaded them to hold off, on account of the personal connection.” Bernard huffs. “Well, I tried, and then Kent and Lane threw their hats into the ring. Kent is against ‘exploiting teenage boys for clicks’ and Lane is in favour of ‘exposing the nepotistic dark side of Wayne’s adoption addiction’. Officially, I’m calling to arrange an interview with her, which, by the way, thanks for making super easy by disconnecting every number I have for you. Shall I pencil you in for the thirteenth of never?”

Bruce must have pissed her off recently, because that’s harsher than Lois would usually go in on him. Oh god, he’s probably said something to or about Jon, hasn’t he?

“But mostly, Timmy, I’m calling because I’m your friend, and if you need me to get on the next bus to Gotham to take you to happy hour at the Iceberg lounge, I will.”

“That’s… no. I’m not in Gotham.”

“I don’t blame you. I know you’ve probably got a plethora of sofas to crash on, but I want to throw mine in the ring, too.”

“I wouldn’t want to drag you into this. There’s a lot of hurt feelings going around, and it’s on me to deal with that. I’m… somewhere safe.”

“That doesn’t sound promising. Are you alone?”

“Just for now.”

“Do you think you should be?”

It’s a question that hits home, and Tim knows the answer is no, but he can’t stomach being turned away by anyone else. It’s safer to just power through it and keep himself busy.

“It’s only for the short term,” he says. “Tam’s setting up a Drake Industries office in Gotham, and once things have settled down a bit I’ll be heading out to San Francisco to do the same there.”

“Why San Francisco?”

“Damian’s going to college there. I mean, it’s also a great place for the sort of work we’re planning to do with DI. Being near Berkeley’s not just a plus for Damian, but also from a hiring point of view. He’ll probably live in a freshman dorm during the week, and then with me at weekends, but we can revisit that.”

“When did this conversation happen, Tim?”

Tim frowns. He’s found the video and hovers over the play button. He can’t listen to it while he’s talking to Bernard, so is there any point watching it? Should he watch it at all, all things considered? He doesn’t want to rub salt in those very fresh wounds after Damian went to such trouble starting the healing process.

“Tim, did you or did you not break up with Damian?”

“What? No. I mean. Probably not. We’re going to work on it.”

“You’re going to work on _that_? Seriously?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“After watching you lay into each other like that, yes. You can’t seriously think of staying with someone who talks to you like that. Tim, Tim, you don’t drive people away, you know that, right? You’re not alone. Don’t let him isolate you.”

“I’m not isolated,” Tim says. “I’m talking to you, aren’t? I’m currently working down a list of everyone I know, trying to tell people about me and Damian before the rumour mill kicks in, and trust me, it’s a long list. I have friends.”

“... You hear yourself, right? How incredibly defensive you sound?”

“Yeah, well, I was a creepy loner kid who stalked Batman and Robin, so forgive me if I’m still a little surprised at myself for having so many people around me now.”

“Your creepy stalkerness is why we all love you, Timmy. Look, I want to be the supportive friend, right? And all the advice blogs say we have the come to jesus talk once, and you keep insisting everything’s fine and normal, and then I shut up about it and wait for you to realise I’m right and you’ll know that I’ll support you and help you get out and shit. So, this is the talk.”

Tim snorts. “One, Bernard, the idea of you shutting up about something you’ve got a bee in your bonnet about is frankly hilarious. Two, I’m pretty certain you’re not meant to tell me the whole plan, complete with ‘I told you so’ overtones, while I’m still ‘insisting everything’s fine and normal’. Which I’m not, by the way. I know it’s not normal, and I know what we said to each other isn’t fine, but a lot of that’s on me.”

Tim picks the laptop up off the pool table and starts walking around the room. There’s a pervading smell of damp in the air, but it’s a green kind of damp rather than mildew, the forest outside making its presence known. It’s a foreign scent to a city boy like Tim, and puts him slightly on edge. He half expects Ivy to pop up at any moment.

He feels twitchy. He hasn’t slept in around thirty hours now, he hasn’t eaten a real meal in god knows how long. Damian should be here. Damian should be looking after him. It would be easier if everything was still a secret and he didn’t have to explain anything to Bernard, but it’s not and he does, and it ought to be a relief to have everything out in the open, but he’s scared of what the harsh light of day will reveal about it. What if working on it isn’t enough? What if it’s never fine?

“Tim?”

“Relationships are _hard_ ,” Tim says finally. “That scares me, you know? I genuinely don’t know which is the scarier thought: that he’ll finally realise how fucked up I am and how much easier his life would be without me, and leave, or that, like everyone else I love, he’ll die. It’s not a secret any more, and everyone’s going to have all these opinions, like Dick, and you, and people are going to tell him how bad I am for him, how bad I am at relationships, and I have to trust he’ll keep coming back even so. I can’t _make_ him.”

“Tim, you’re not bad… Okay. You’re _not great_ at relationships.” Bernard’s voice is dry but reassuring. “But you’re not a bad person.”

“I know. And Damian isn’t either. And I’ve heard what you’re saying to me, I have, and if I knew how to show you how good we are together in a way you’d believe I would, but I know if I keep arguing with you about it you’re never going to believe me. When you called me out on talking about Damian so much, I didn’t try and lie to you then, did I?”

“Look, just… If there’s ever anything you feel like you can’t tell me, then that’s a sign you should tell me, okay? Hiding stuff because you’re scared of how your friends will react is a big ol’ red flag.”

“I’m done hiding,” Tim says firmly. “Damian was right when he said keeping secrets makes me feel special, but he makes me feel special, and that shouldn’t be a secret.”

“Well that’s… sappy. I suppose.”

“I haven’t slept,” Tim informs Bernard shortly. “Forgive me for not being my most eloquent.”

“No, it’s sweet. What does being done hiding look like?”

“Well, I suppose it means preparing to go public, like we talked about.”

“Aren’t you both fired? No sexy corporate retreats for the two of you.”

“No, but there’s San Francisco. I don’t know how you’d spin it, but I’m sure you could think of something.”

“You know I’m the intern, right? I don’t actually get to spin anything. And I can’t even freelance for TMZ or Buzzfeed while I’m here. Unless your plan hinges on how many sugars Cat Grant takes in her coffee, I don’t know what I can really do.”

“So talk to Cat, and see. Hint that as my friend you always thought there was something more to the way Damian and I fight. Pigtail pulling. Pit her against Lane; if Lois is focused on the adoption issue then persuade Cat to focus on me as Bruce’s protege instead. Hell, pit them both against Vicki Vale. Just make sure nothing appears in print that reminds people we used to be brothers.”

“Intern. Innn-teeeeern. Not editorial.”

“Do they get you to proofread? Fact check?”

“No, there are actually people who have paid jobs doing that.”

“And how do they take their coffee?”

Bernard sighs. “Alright, fine. I’ll see what kind of groundwork I can lay.”

Tim grins. “Good! So, when’s my interview with Lois Lane, then?”

There’s a rattle of keyboard. “This afternoon. Two pm?”

“Perfect.”

“Take a nap before then, okay? You are not in good form for a Lois Lane interview right now. Your bags have bags.”

“... No. No I am not.” Tim smiles at his reflection in the laptop. “I’m glad you called.”

“Me too, Timmy. I know you’re at where you’re at, right now, but if things change the sofa offer remains open. And if they don’t, well, then I guess I’ll come crash on yours in San Francisco some time.”

“I’d like that.”

“Well, back to the coffee run, I guess. None for you, Timmy. You need your beauty sleep.”

Tim yawns, jaw cracking. “Not kidding. Bye, Bernard.”

“Toodles.”

Right. Nap, lunch, interview prep, interview.

Honestly, if he were looking for a silver lining in the whole thing, at least after talking to Bruce being grilled by Lois is going to be a breeze.


	32. In which Damian has an awkward conversation

Damian marks another square off on his survey of Titans Tower and its island. Though there is a not insignificant amount of green space around the tower, much of it is taken up with alien horticulture - a legacy of Starfire’s time here that the younger Titans have made the effort to maintain - and he’s not sure there’s sufficient grazing pasture to sustain Batcow.

“She could live on Ma’s farm,” Jon offers. “It’s mostly arable, but there’s a small herd there already.” He hovers a couple of feet above Damian, holding a tacheometer. “Two point oh five one meters.”

Damian jots that down. “Her only experience with other bovines is as the sole survivor of a slaughter,” he says dismissively. “Besides, that only moves the problem. I made a commitment to take responsibility for that animal, and I will not foist her off on a stranger - a stranger to _her_ , Kent, not me, _obviously_ \- solely because of a shift in my relationship with another human. She’s not less important than Drake.”

Jon snorts. “You wanna try that line on him?”

Damian scowls, conscious of the blush creeping up his cheeks. “She hasn’t become less important because of Drake,” he amends. “Nor have any of my non-human companions.”

“I’m half human.”

“The sentiment stands.”

Damian understands why so many cultures have arranged marriages, especially the assassins. He only has one former paramour to deal with, and it’s excruciating. He’d called Jon from a payphone (he’d tried standing in the middle of a park and shouting for him the way father and Drake summon their respective supers, but apparently Jon had been in class so wasn’t listening) and requested a lift to the Tower. He’d slept for most of the flight, and successfully pretended to sleep for rather longer, but somewhere over Utah Jon had given him a squeeze.

“I know you’re awake,” he said. “I can tell from your heart rate.”

“One of your father’s tricks,” Damian grumbled.

“Nice nap?”

“Tt.”

“So… you and Tim, huh?”

Jon’s face was red and windbitten, but Damian could feel the telltale rise in his body temperature that betrayed a whole body blush.

“Yes.” Damian realised there was probably a protocol for this, a way to inform a former friend turned boyfriend turned friend about a new relationship, but it had never occurred to him he’d need it before Tim, and with all the secrecy he’d allowed himself to push it to the back of his mind.

“It’s serious? I mean, not that you’re casual people. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Being casual. Or not being casual. But, you two. I mean.”

Damian sighed. “Yes.”

“And it’s good? I mean, it’s working? No, I mean… I don’t know. It’s good?”

“Yes.”

They passed over the state line into Nevada. Damian desperately hoped the conversation was over. He didn’t want to hurt Jon (especially not at this height, flying at this speed) by raising the spectre of comparison, but ultimately the truth was it _was_ good, good enough that he wanted to keep working for it in a way that when he’d fought with Jon he hadn’t. He and Tim were just more compatible, and it wasn’t a judgement on the younger boy, but Damian was scared that if he let himself talk about how good it was Jon would take it as just that.

“Damian?”

They weren’t too far from the Tower now, only a few hundred miles. Maybe he could wriggle out of Jon’s grasp and just hitchhike the rest of the way?

“Damian?”

No, it wasn’t practical. Damian swallowed his nerves, and resolved to see the conversation out.

“Yes?”

“Why exactly did you need an emergency lift to the Tower?”

“Drake and I were fired from Wayne Enterprises yesterday for fighting in the lobby, though Drake was planning to quit shortly anyway. Unfortunately, that coincided with a visit from my mother, who informed father of our relationship. I thought it was… politic… to give father time to process the news. I no longer need to remain in Gotham over the summer, so it makes sense to focus my attention on the Titans instead. I won’t have as much time for the team while I’m at college, so I will institute a rigorous training scheme over the remainder of the summer to ensure you are prepared to stumble along without my constant assistance.”

“Your dad doesn’t approve?”

Damian caught his bottom lip between his teeth. “He has misconstrued the situation. I have attempted to explain it to him in person, and I have left him a letter.”

“It’s not like you to run away.”

“This is a strategic retreat.”

“You really think he’s that mad about it? I mean, he’s your dad.”

“He also perceives himself as Drake’s father, as well.”

“Oh.” Jon fell silent for a short time, but to Damian’s disappointment piped up again with, “Well he can’t be mad forever. I mean, sure, it might be a bit icky, but it’s not like you’re related or you were raised together. And hey, at least he’s not a meta.”

Damian knew it was meant to be a bit of self-deprecating humour, but it still hit home. He failed to laugh at it in time, and the rest of the flight had passed in awkward silence.

Sometimes Damian wishes he were still in the League. He’d have known to expect the arranged marriage, so would have resisted the temptation of other paramours. And if he’d transgressed, well, he probably would have killed them so as not to leave evidence of his poor judgement. 

It’s an idle fantasy to consider eliminating Jon just so he doesn’t have to have any more awkward conversations with him, and he’s got enough distance from his past he doesn’t feel the old stab of insecurity over it, scared it means he doesn’t deserve his mantle as Robin. He doesn’t allow himself to indulge too deeply. He would, naturally, regret the murder shortly after committing it anyway. But right now, standing under the summer sun with his ex-boyfriend pulling a face that Damian knows means “I don’t know if I should ask the following question but I’m going to do it anyway” there’s a certain appeal to the neatness of only allowing one lover to live at a time. 

“How long have you and Tim been, uh-”

“Married,” Damian supplies without thinking.

“Married!?” Jon blanches.

Damian curses himself in Arabic. Too much time dwelling on the League; he’d forgotten that to the outside world he and Tim were merely lovers (well, to the small but rapidly increasing proportion of the world that knows anything about it at all).

“Not legally.”

“Illegally? Damian, how are you _illegally_ married to Tim?” Jon gestures wildly with the tacheometer.

“Stop that,” Damian says. “You’ll ruin the readings. And your father might hear!”

“ _Secretly_ illegally married!?”

“Well, not secretly any more, obviously.” Damian crosses his arms over his chest and glares at Jon, until his friend tucks the surveying tool into his belt and drops until his feet are on the ground. At sixteen Jon is rapidly catching Damian up in terms of height, and he’s already broader across the shoulders than the older boy.

“Grandfather arranged it,” Damian says. “He kidnapped Tim, and insisted if we didn’t marry he would kill both of us. A League wedding isn’t legally binding in the outside world, but he also informed Tim he expected us to undergo the formalities in America as well.”

“Wait, so. What? I mean... Why? Were you already dating? Is Ra’s Al Ghul, like, really against sex before marriage? How did he even know you were dating? _Were_ you already having sex? Have you now?”

“Don’t! Don’t ask me about sex,” Damian says, voice cracking on the final word and arms flung wide in supplication.

It’s one thing to share carefully curated experiences with Colin - who keeps sending Damian sex toy reviews since Damian sent him a discrete snapchat of Tim’s beautiful butt plug - but Jon is young and innocent and knows what Damian looks like when he comes, which, as far as Damian is concerned, puts any kind of sex talk off limits between them. Maybe that’s not entirely reasonable, but he wants to forget their whole embarrassing affair, and he can’t do that if Jon is staring at him wide eyed and very obviously picturing Damian and Tim naked together.

“Sorry,” Jon lies cheerfully. “Before I came to pick you up, had you been to see him to say goodbye? Had you guys been-” He gestures, thumb and forefinger of his left hand making a circle, forefinger of his right penetrating it.

“How is that not asking me about sex?” Damian demands. “And no. I haven’t seen him since we parted ways at Wayne Enterprises. We have been in contact since, but only to discuss certain… logistics.”

“Logistics?” Jon wriggles his eyebrows.

“Stop that. I’ll have you know that much of our time together has been spent on completely non-sexual activities. We watched the sun rise over Gotham together once.”

“You and you… husband.”

“Yes.” Damian allows himself a moment of foolish fondness at hearing that word come out of someone else’s mouth, and the mental image it provokes. Tim. His husband.

No matter how bad the fight, things have to be okay, don’t they? They’re married. They can’t just break up.

“You’re blushing.”

“I am not!”

Jon smirks at him. Damian folds his arms again, half an expression of anger, half holding himself in memory of Tim’s arms around him.

“Okay, no more sex questions. Just marriage questions, like ‘what the frig, you’re married?’”

“Tt.” Jon still swears like he’s ten, only confirming Damian’s conviction he’s too young to talk about sex with. “As I said, Grandfather arranged it. Some years ago, if you believe him. He has always wanted Drake as an heir, and he perceived this as a way of achieving that aim. He interfered with Drake’s adoption paperwork, meaning in the eyes of the law we have never been brothers. He kidnapped Drake, kept father too busy to pursue him, and presented me with a choice: marry him or we both die.”

“That is a lot less romantic than I was imagining.”

“I told you it was my grandfather’s scheme. What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. So it’s all a inheritance thing? But you are actually-” Jon raises his hands like he’s about to make The Gesture again, but drops them at Damian’s glare “-dating?”

“We are now.”

“Oh. Okay, see, that’s kinda romantic. You got married and then you fell in love.” Jon cocks his head to one side. “Are you in love? I mean, your heart rate spikes every time you say his name, and you get all hot, and your skin radiates. You radiate.” He sounds fond, but there’s something else in his voice Damian doesn’t want to examine too closely.

“Yes,” Damian says. “Though, honestly, I have harboured tender feelings for him for some time.” He tightens his arms around himself. “We have been forced to approach our relationship in an unorthodox order, but being married provides a level of security and reassurance that we can weather our current circumstances.”

Jon’s shadow falls over Damian’s face, and Damian frowns to see his friend hovering again. Jon’s expression is shuttered, his gaze directed over Damian’s shoulder towards the ocean.

“What?” Damian asks.

“How… how long did you harbour tender feelings?”

Ah.

“Not that long,” Damian says, though the reassurance lies awkward on his tongue. 

If Damian tries to pinpoint the moment Tim set out on his path towards being the centre of Damian’s world, he finds it keeps moving backwards in time. Was it when Tim took him out for his eighteenth birthday? When Tim comforted him after things ended with Jon? Or when Tim rescued him from a mortifying interview with Headmaster Hammer? Or before that, somewhere amongst the taunts and death threats and saving each other’s lives and trying to slit each other’s throats?

Maybe not then.

It has been a _winding_ path.

Jon swallows, and presses his lips together.

“Yeah?”

“When i was with you, I was focused entirely on you,” Damian reminds him gently.

“Yeah.” Jon smiles, but it’s a small and unsure thing. “You really were.”

“Jon?”

“I’m okay.” Jon lifts another couple of feet into the air. “It’s not… I’m okay, really.”

“I’m sorry.” Damian looks up at him. The sun is behind Jon, feathering through his hair like a halo. Jon Kent, Superman’s son, pure as farm fresh milk and wholesome as apple pie. The most truly, genuinely, wholly _good_ person Damian knows. He loves Jon, he always loved Jon, but it’s not a love either of them can live with. Not inside of. “I shouldn’t have involved you in this. It wasn’t fair of me.”

“No. I want to be involved. You’re still my friend, Damian. I just…” Jon sighs and drops back to earth. The sun moves back over his shoulder, and he’s just Jon again, bereft of his halo. “I’m jealous,” he admits. “I mean it, when I say you radiate. You’re so in love. I know that what I really want is someone who makes me look at that when I think of them, but it’s hard to let go of wanting you to look like that when you think of me.”

“Do you… do you still think about us?”

He needs the answer to be no. Guilt threatens to choke him, as dread grows in Damian’s stomach and he watches Jon’s face for signs he’s lying.

“Sometimes. It was… intense. I’ve been on dates since then, but nothing’s really been like it was between us.”

“It wasn’t healthy, between us.”

“What’s it like with Tim?”

Damian doesn’t want to answer. It’s intense. It’s blindingly bright. It’s everything it was with Jon but instead of overwhelming his lover Tim meets him with intensity of his own.

“It works,” Damian says.

“And it didn’t, between us.”

Damian opens his mouth to reply, but Jon holds a hand up.

“It really didn’t, I know. I’m just being an idiot. It’s just… it’s weird, with just us at the Tower, and I had too much time to think while you slept flying you over, and I had a really terrible date with Milagro Reyes a couple of weeks ago and I was going to message you about it but it seemed weird to do that and now we’re talking about how you’re married to your brother and I can’t stop thinking about you guys having sex and I shouldn’t have said that because you asked me not to but it’s true and I don’t even know which of you I’m more jealous of because Tim has this really intense thing of his own going on that’s super hot and that’s why it works between you, doesn’t it?”

Damian has managed to follow most of that stream of consciousness. “It is, yes.” His arms ache from how tightly he’s got them folded and he forces himself to relax. “You don’t have to stay. _I_ don’t have to stay. You’re right that I ran away. I should return to Gotham and confront any questions father has head on.”

Jon shakes his head. “I think you should probably trust your instincts. I just… if he comes here, to stay with you, will you warn me? Just so I can prepare myself.”

Damian has no idea if Tim is going to come to the Tower. He has no idea where Tim _is_.

“There’s only space for one Robin at a time at the Tower,” he says, as much to reassure Jon as to distract himself from his current train of thought.

“One Robin, one cat, one dog, one civet, one turkey, one hellbeast…” Jon ticks them off on his fingers. “But you have to admit I’m right: there isn’t space for a cow.”

“Tt. We could ship in feed. She spends most of her time in the cave at the moment.”

“Give me Batcow, Damian.”

“You don’t live on the farm. I’d be giving her to your grandmother.”

“I’m there before school every morning to help out.” Jon flashes Damian a smile. “We’re getting a bull in next month. Imagine: Batcalves!”

And, okay, the thought of a wobbly legged calf stumbling around, wide eyed, never deprived of its mother’s milk or its mother... 

“She’s quite old, for a cow. I think.” Damian sighs. “Okay, yes, Batcow can _temporarily_ live on the Kent farm. Goliath will have to stay in the Batcave and Jerry is too old to really be moved now.”

“Well, Raven will be relieved. I don’t know what she’d have said if you asked her to teleport Goliath here.”

“I’m sure she’s going to be thrilled taking Batcow through her soul self.” Damian smiles. “Of course, that is your request to put to her now.”

“I guess it is.” Jon shoves his hands into his pockets. “So, we done surveying?”

“Yes. I’ll send a message to Raven to ask for her help.”

“Cool. I’m gonna-” he takes a hand back out of his pocket again to gesture vaguely at the sky “-fly around for a bit.”

Damian nods. “I understand if you’d rather go home tonight.”

“Yeah, maybe. I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you.”

Jon doesn’t launch himself into the sky like his showier family members. He just floats up, slowly, angling back towards the sea so by the time he’s over the ocean he’s lying on his back staring up at the sky. After thirty seconds or so he flips over and extends both arms in front of him, and disappears.

Damian packs up the surveying equipment slowly. He feels drained, and the idea of having the Tower to himself appeals. He wishes he had Titus and Pennyworth here already, to curl up with on the sofa. Without them he needs something to keep his hands busy, and he resolves to make Alfred’s filo and goats cheese tart.

He hadn’t thought about how much pain being in love could cause others, but he’d known on some level. Jon said to trust his instincts, but Damian was raised to question them, and his tactical retreat from Gotham tells him he’s scared to face the hurt he’s caused there. The wedge he’s driven through his family.

Are they just following the outline of his grandfather’s plan? It’s obvious to Damian now that Ra’s insistence they make the relationship public with a legal marriage was calculated to drive them deeper into secrecy than necessary. It’s such basic reverse psychology it’s glaring in hindsight.

Would it be easier to just give in, to throw himself back into his prepubescent life and bring Timothy with him? They would rule the League of Assassins in their iron grip, haul it into the twenty-first century. Timothy would learn to accept the killing eventually. Damian could put the guilt he’s learned at his father’s knee aside again. They would remake the world together, make it fairer, safer, better.

_All shall love me and despair._

Contrary to most of his family’s belief, he has some experience with the kind of popular media his more fantastically minded siblings enjoy. Despair is a powerful tool, one Ra’s has wielded against Damian’s family time and time again. Against Tim before the wedding, and now against Bruce.

Whatever his grandfather’s overarching scheme, Damian has no desire to shortcut it by throwing himself upon his mercy. He has made his bed, and he will lie in it until it is time to get up again, and begin the fight anew.

He wonders if Grayson has read his letter yet.

He wonders if father has.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tim would be so proud of Damian (and so would Jason, who would start leaving the Silmarillion around in strategic places, which is why Damian will never admit to anything!)


	33. In which Tim starts spiralling

He doesn’t sleep before the interview with Lois Lane, too caught up in prepping for it, and he flubs it badly in several places. He lets her talk him into a corner and when the adoption issue comes up he just stutters at her. 

“Bruce isn’t my father,” he says, desperately scrolling through the note he made to find something useful. “I mean, we’re very close, he’s a father figure, and I appreciate everything he’s done for me-” and that comes out five times more bitter than he means it to “- especially after my dad’s death, but ultimately I’m Tim Drake, and as time passes it’s become increasingly important to me to reclaim that identity. That Bruce preserved for me. He’s very important to me. So was my dad. Um.”

“Could you expand on how Bruce preserved your… identity?”

She’s giving him an easy way out, and that’s a sign of quite how badly he’s doing because Lois Lane never takes pity on her interview subjects.

“Well, Drake Industries started life under my great grandfather-”

“Don’t read me the Wikipedia article, Mr Drake. We need something to keep our interns busy; Bernard can summarise it for me later.”

“Good to know you’re keeping him out of mischief. Um. Fine. Okay, so while my dad was in a coma Drake Industries was badly mismanaged. Mr Wayne was acting as my guardian at the time, and as DI failed he bought up contracts, hired staff, and poached clients. Dad was furious when he woke up, thought Bruce had preyed upon the company when there was no one to defend it, not that he ever really had any involvement before Haiti either.”

“But you dispute your father’s account, and believe Mr Wayne’s?”

“A lot of the contracts stayed in the old names. Everything was kept ready for a demerger long before I stepped up as acting CEO of Wayne Enterprises.” A bullet point catches Tim’s eye. “Speaking of which, my role as-”

“Yes yes, prepared you for this. You’ve said that twice already, Mr Drake.”

God, he really should have taken that nap.

“The guardianship, the hostile takeover of Drake Industries, your failed adoption… What would you say to people who suggested Bruce Wayne was preying upon you, as much as your company? That he attempted to merge you into his family as he merged Drake Industries?”

“That they sound really creepy?” Tim yawns. “Sorry. What?”

“Let’s move on,” Lois says. “According to your bro- your father figure’s son, you played your cards close to your chest with the demerger. In the same discussion, you intimated that you were planning to include Damian Wayne in the demerger, but hadn’t told him.”

“Have I told you about our planned locations?”

“Yes, Tim.” Lois pauses. “Do you want to go and get a coffee?”

“I, uh. No. Thanks. Tam is looking for a site in Gotham, and I’m heading to San Francisco shortly. It’s important to us to have representation on both coasts.”

“You said. Damian Wayne is attending Berkeley, isn’t he? Did that factor into your decision?”

“Yes. No. Um. Berkeley’s not the same as San Francisco, as anyone from the City will explain to you at length, I've found. How did you know Damian is going there? Oh, from Jon, right?”

“To return to the conversation you had with Damian in the foyer of Wayne Enterprises, you said you were “trying to do what’s best for us” but he seemed to be unaware of the demerger. What-”

“Wait, wait! You keep saying conversation, but it was a fight. You want to talk about that, don’t you?” Tim finds his spot in his notes and starts reading. “He’s Bruce Wayne’s son, and I’m Bruce Wayne’s protege. There’s always been a tension between us. We both come from privilege, and-”

“You’re quoting Bernard at me now? Save it for Grant or Vale, Mr Drake. I want to know what role you saw _your brother_ taking in Drake Industries.”

“He’s not my brother. Please don’t refer to him as my brother in the article. We’re not related and we never have been.” He’s pleading. That’s not in his notes. Or rather, it’s in his notes to not do it. “He’s good at his job, Lois. He’s clever and driven and commands a room and any business would be lucky to have him, and I’m not leaving an asset like that at Wayne Enterprises.”

“Mr Wayne acquired Drake Industries, and the Drake heir, and now the Drake heir has acquired multiple Wayne Enterprises contracts and clients and attempts to acquire the Wayne heir. There’s a certain symmetry there, isn’t there?”

“Huh.”

“Mr Drake?”

“I guess there is. I mean, Dick is Bruce’s eldest, so it’s not like Damian is _the_ heir.” Tim drums his fingers on his keyboard. “It sounds very premeditated, doesn’t it? I didn’t even think about demerging Drake Industries until earlier this summer, when a venture capitalist approached me.”

He’s not sure why he says that. Something niggles about it, why it’s a bad lie to tell. Before Tim can chase that thought down, Lois pounces again.

“I was under the impression Damian isn’t keen to take you up on your job offer.”

“I haven’t made him an offer yet. This isn’t how I meant for all this to come out.”

“Do you think you can still pull it off, under the circumstances?”

“Yes.”

She winds up the interview, and Tim knows she’s dissatisfied with his answers. He’s not giving her what she needs to sell this as a corporate espionage story; it’s too gossip columny. And he’s tried to follow Bernard’s plan, dress sharply, but if the article doesn’t include at least one reference to the bags under his eyes he’ll be surprised.

He’s fucked this up too.

He’s so tired, but he knows if he goes to bed he’s going to be staring at the ceiling for hours. Guilt gives him the worst insomnia. Plus, he wants to keep his sleeping patterns broadly diurnal, so it makes sense to power through.

Tam has sent him some listings for offices to lease, which is numbingly banal. He googles for realtor ratings, microwaves some hot pockets for a late lunch, replies to a couple of Tam’s emails, and when there’s nothing else left to distract him starts looking on gumtree to see if anyone has a parrot for sale. 

Tam’s correspondence drops off as five o’clock passes in Gotham. A realtor calls back. He completes an online assessment for his Arabic class. 

And then, just like that, he has nothing to do. No distractions left.

The reality of everything he’s done collapses in on him.

He’s lied and manipulated and avoided everyone apart from Damian for months now. People he loves. People whose opinions are important to him.

This was supposed to be the start of something new and good. The truth is out and he and Damian can be open about their love. Instead, everything is dark and messy and they’ve hurt so many people, and Tim’s starting to wonder if it’s worth it. Damian makes him happy and whole, but what’s his happiness compared to his friends’ and family’s? Is there some cosmic scale out there, weighing his happiness against the unhappiness he causes others? He knows in his heart of hearts he doesn’t deserve Damian, and this is why.

He types clumsily, slamming his fingers into the keys on his laptop. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do or say, he just knows that if he’s spends any more time inside his own head with this guilt he’s going to go mad. He doesn’t have a phone, doesn’t have a number for Damian, but he knows the codes for all the Titans communicators, and how to route them through Skype in a pinch. 

Damian answers on the first alert.

“Timothy, ya amar, I was thinking of you.”

His voice is immediately soothing. Tim falls sideways on the sofa, bringing his knees up. The call is voice only - Damian is using his ear piece rather than the screen in the main room of the Tower - so Tim stares at the logo in the centre of the screen until his eyes start to swim.

“Damian.”

“Something is wrong.”

“I needed to hear your voice,” Tim says.

“I am glad to hear yours too,” Damian says. “Where are you? What’s happened?”

“An old hideout, out of Gotham. I… was going to stay with Dick, but he said no.” He swallows the memory back down before it catches up with him again.Tim rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. “How did I get this so wrong? I was just trying to find the right moment, but everyone’s hurting. Dick, Bruce, Alfred, us… We should have just told everyone as soon as we got back.”

Damian is silent on the other end of the line.

Silence sound a lot like ‘I told you so’ even though Damian never told him, just let him take the lead. Damian trusted him.

“I don’t know what to do, Damian. Dick is so mad at me. He’s the best brother either of us ever had and we’ve lied to him over and over. Bruce… I just yelled at him, Damian. I summoned him to the roof of the GCPD and then I just yelled everything I’ve been bottling up for years at him and left before he could reply. He’s… he was my _dad_ , and I told him he was a bad parent.”

“I can’t say I was any more complimentary,” Damian admits. “I left him a letter. Alfred is sympathetic to our cause, though.”

“Alfred? Well that’s… that’s good. God. I can’t believe we’re putting _Alfred_ through this. _I’m_ putting him through it. You kept trying to tell me.”

“This is my fault,” Damian says quietly. “The anger you are directing at yourself.”

Tim doesn’t correct him, because though he’s more than capable of tearing himself down unaided Damian’s words in the foyer have certainly sharpened the barbs.

“I’m sorry, Timothy. I’m sorry for everything I said.”

Tim remembers what he said to Bernard earlier. “You weren’t wrong, though. I liked having a secret. It reminded me of when I figured out Bruce and Dick’s identities. I didn’t have any friends, I barely had my parents, I was struggling with anything that wasn’t purely academic, but I’d figured out Batman’s real identity and no one else had and it made me feel like there was something worthwhile about me.”

“There are so many worthwhile things about you,” Damian says. “I wish I was there. I’d show you.”

Tim isn’t sure there’s anything worth loving about him right now, but it’s nice of Damian to say so, so he doesn’t argue with him. He doesn’t want to argue with Damian ever again.

“I don’t want to fight with you ever again,” Tim says. “And it scares me that that’s not a realistic expectation. Every time I think about our future together I get caught up in stupid things, like what if you want Titus to sleep on the bed and I don’t, or if you’re doing night shifts at the hospital and I’m working all day at Drake Industries who’s going to cook dinner, or if we have to go undercover at a coffee shop and end up fighting about my caffeine intake, or one of us gets de-aged and-”

He’s about to start in on how that would mess with the power dynamics of their relationship when Damian interrupts him. “When was the last time you slept?”

Tim has to think. “I took a nap. Yesterday.”

“Tim, you are overwrought. You should sleep.”

“I can’t sleep, not with this hanging over me. I need to do something. There has to be a way to make it okay. Maybe we should tell them we broke up?”

“Tt. And how would that go, precisely?”

“I… I don’t know.” Tim rubs his eyes. “I don’t want to pretend to break up. What if it makes us actually break up? Magical thinking, I know, I know, catastrophizing, but I feel like everything’s on a knife edge and I just… I wish there was a reset button and we could go back and do it all over and get it right and not feel like this. Another multiversal crisis.”

“Don’t wish for that,” Damian says, and even through the haze of exhaustion Tim recognises that Damian is trying not to laugh at him. “When would this reset take you back to, precisely? Before we fought in the WE lobby? Graduation? Prom? When we returned to Gotham? Before we got married?”

“No! Not that far. I… I don’t know.”

“This isn’t the path I’d have taken in an ideal world,” Damian says. “But that is not to say I haven’t enjoyed exploring it. When you called me, I was… I was thinking about the photos you took of yourself.” It comes out in a rush, and for the first time since the diner Tim’s mind is completely distracted from his guilt.

“Oh.”

A fire catches in Tim’s belly, hot and tight, pushing out the anxious writhing. Tim puts a hand on his abdomen, fingers just toying with his belt buckle.

“Tim?”

“Which ones?”

“Where you’re fingering yourself. The sepia set.”

Tim remembers taking those. The sepia was self-indulgent but he liked the way he looked in the muted tan shades, warmer than black and white or even colour photography. He’d found an old curtain with a brocade pattern and laid himself out on it, letting the texture stand contrast to his flesh.

He has the negatives. Maybe while he’s here he should set up a dark room, print up a nice album for the two of them.

“Where are you?” Tim asks. His voice has dropped a register, and Damian’s breath catches on the other end of the line.

“The roof at the Tower. Jon left an hour ago, so I am alone here.”

They know too many fliers for the roof to be a truly private place, but if that’s the risk Damian wants to take Tim is happy to picture it.

“Weather must be better in San Francisco than here,” Tim chuckles. “It’s been raining all day.”

“It’s beautiful. I was painting, but I need to give the current wash time to dry, and I…”

“Tell me, Damian.”

“I thought of you. I’m always thinking of you. And then I thought I might…produce a self-portrait for you.”

Tim slips his hand under the waistband of his pants. “Yes, baby bat?”

“I brought a mirror up here, to experiment with the best angle. And then you called.”

“And what are you doing now?”

“... talking to you?”

Tim snorts. “Yes, baby bat. What else?”

“Are you asking if I’m still… picturing the images?” Damian sounds somewhere between scandalised and intrigued, and there’s a rustle on the other end of the line. “While talking to you?”

“I’m asking if you’re doing more than picturing them,” Tim says. “I’m picturing you. I’m lying on the sofa in an empty hotel with nothing to look at but the damp spots on the ceiling and all I can see is you on the roof of the Tower, mirror propped up on your easel alongside a fresh canvas and your hand in your lap. Am I imagining that right?”

Air moves passed the receiver on Damian’s end and Tim isn’t sure if he’s adjusting the communicator or just exhaling.

“Yes, ya amar.”

“What are you wearing?”

“I was wearing my uniform earlier, but I took off the cape and tunic when I started to… consider this venture. So, tights, undershirt, mask.”

“Boots?”

“Boots.” There’s a pause. “You like my boots?”

Tim laughs. “I do, baby bat.”

“What are you wearing?”

“Suit pants, dress shirt, waistcoat. I know you like it when I wear a waistcoat.”

“Underpants?”

Tim grins. “Actually, no.”

There’s a breathy moan from the other end of the line, stuttering like Damian isn’t sure whether he should try and bite it back or not.

“Are you touching yourself, baby bat? Over your tights?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Please.”

“Of course, ya amar.” 

“Are you hard, baby bat?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been hard?”

There’s an audible gulp. “Since before I fetched the mirror.”

“You’ve been comforting me, calming me down, with a raging erection?”

“I wouldn’t call it raging.” Damian’s tone is clipped.

“Have you been touching yourself while we talked? Just taking the edge off?”

“No, I-”

“I like the image,” Tim talks over him. “Taking care of me emotionally while you take care of yourself physically. I’m not sorry I interrupted.”

“I… may have adjusted myself.” Damian sighs. “But my attention was wholly upon you, my love. I was not distracted nor impatient.”

“I love you, baby bat. Ma atyaback. Habibi, ya nour el ein.”

“You’ve been practicing! Ana bahibik.”

“Ana bahibik.” Tim preens at Damian’s compliment. “But we were talking about what you’re doing. Are you touching yourself? I want you to.”

Damian’s breath hitches. “Over or inside my tights?”

Tim considers. On the one hand, he wants to string this out, but on the other hand now he’s not riding the adrenaline high of stress he’s conscious he’s pretty tired.

“Inside,” he says. “Are you wearing your armoured cup?”

“Just a jock strap.”

“Mmm. I like the way you look in a strap; the way it frames your ass cheeks. Is it tight with your hand in there? Push it down; pull yourself free of your jock and your tights. I want to picture you exposed to the air. Is that okay? Are you happy to do that?”

“Anything you ask.”

“If I ask you for anything you’re not comfortable with, you can tell me. I want you to enjoy yourself. I’m picturing you on that roof and you’re happy doing this, and if that changes I need you to tell me as soon as the situation changes.”

Damian chuckles. “I am consenting enthusiastically and wholeheartedly, ya amar. Tell me what you would have me do.”

“What are you sitting on?”

“I am standing.”

Oh, that presents a pretty mental image, Damian with his hips thrust forward, tights shoved down under his balls, looking out over the-

“Are you facing the sea? Or the city?”

“Which would you rather?”

“The city.”

“I am facing the city. Tell me, ya amar, what shall I picture?”

Tim stares down the length of his body. The dress pants have coffee stains and a damp patch at the fly where his erection is straining the fabric. His shirt is mis-buttoned so it’s a lumpy mess around his waist. He’s got two days’ worth of stubble and there’s a bit of hash brown in his greasy hair.

“You were thinking about the sepia set of photos? Picture those.”

“Tt.”

Tim lifts his hips up and unbuckles his belt completely. He unbuttons his fly, his cock springing free, and slides his hand into the back of his dress pants.

“Do you remember in Turkey? I told you when I fingered myself I’d think of rimming you. How you opened up under my tongue. Do you remember?”

“Nnnn. Yes. Yes, you said you’d think of me… I’d think of you, thinking of me, whenever I… Uh, Tim. Tell me what you want me to do.” The change in Damian’s voice is sudden, from skeptical straight to wrecked and needy. It goes straight to Tim’s cock, and precum spurts across his pants.

Tim teases a finger around his hole. He doesn’t have lube to hand, but he has spit and precum and he knows precisely how rough he can be with himself.

“Hold yourself firmly, baby bat, and stroke yourself. Just… just slowly.”

“How slowly?”

It’s awkward with his pants still on, but Tim has one hand around his cock and the other teasing his hole. He slides his hand up the length of his cock and down again, rocking back onto his crooked finger.

“Up… and down.” He talks as he jerks himself. “Up and down and up and down and-”

“Ah!”

“Baby bat?”

“Are you- Are you doing it too?”

“In time with you, baby bat.”

“Are you close?” Tim can hear in Damian’s voice that he is, and he remembers that he interrupted Damian earlier, he’s been waiting for release. Waiting for Tim to give it to him.

“Yes, baby bat,” Tim says, though he isn’t, just yet.

Damian whimpers.

“Speed up, baby bat. Bring yourself closer to the edge.”

Tim listens to his lover gasp, to the rhythmic dry-wet slapping of his hand on his cock, to the cry of gulls and the waves lapping against the base of the Tower. He pumps himself in time with Damian. His sphincter tightens around his finger and he writhes, trying to find an angle that will let him push deeper inside himself.

“Damian, Damian, stop.”

The sound of Damian’s hand stops immediately, but he keeps gasping.

“Are you on the edge, Damian? Right on the edge?”

Damian keens.

“Hold yourself tight for me. Keep yourself there.”

Tim digs his heels into the sofa and pushes his hips into the air. He lets go of his cock and pushes his pants down to his knees without removing his finger from his passage. His cock bobs in the cool air of the hotel lounge.

He pulls the laptop over from the table to balances it on the arm of the sofa next to his head. He wants to feel close to Damian, not raising his voice to make sure the mic picks him up. He takes his cock in hand again and starting to pump it vigorously.

“Ya amar?”

“You can start jerking yourself again. When you get to the edge, I want you to stop.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m asking you to. You wanted me to tell you what to do, Damian. I’m telling you to bring yourself to the edge and hold yourself there. Are you still enjoying yourself, Damian?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Tim pauses.

“We don’t have to do this.”

“No! I want to!”

Tim starts jerking himself again, reassured. It’s hard to articulate what he wants in the throes of passion, and ‘stop’ has two meanings here. He suspects they’re wandering into safeword territory, and that’s another discussion they need to have. He makes a mental note to do some research and files the thought away for a less urgent time.

“I want you to stop again, Damian. Do you want to?”

“Y- yes.”

“You’re so good, baby bat. You’re doing so well. You trust me, don’t you, Damian?”

“I trust you.”

“You trust me to make you feel good?”

“I trust you, ya amar.”

“I’m touching myself, Damian. I’ve got my finger inside me. Remember Turkey, remember my tongue, remember my finger?”

“I’m… I’m going to…”

“I told you to stop.”

“I have, I have, but I… Tim.” Damian whimpers. “I might anyway. I’m so close. Tim.”

“Are you going to come for me, baby bat?”

“When you ask me to, my love.”

That pushes Tim over the edge. He clenches around his finger, drawing it into himself until the pad of his finger is pressed tight against the knot of nerves that sends electricity straight through his cock and he comes like a bolt of lightning.

“Tim? Tim? Pl-please.”

He’s barely coherent, but his baby bat is calling for him, and he needs to make Damian feel good. “Come for me, Damian. Please.”

Damian comes with a strangled howl. Tim rides his hand and wonders if Damian is jerking himself or if he came just at Tim’s command.

There’s a thump at the other end of the line. Damian’s rapid pants are suddenly distant.

Tim smirks.

He rolls over on the sofa to face the laptop. A yawn cracks his face almost in two, and he hopes Damian’s communicator hasn’t fallen off the edge of the Tower, because Tim will be asleep before Damian can get to it.

“I love you.”

Damian’s voice is soft in Tim’s ear. The words chime like harp strings, each a beautiful, perfect note that rings out across the miles between them.

“I love you too,” Tim says.

His laptop screen flickers. Damian appears, standing in the central room in the Tower. He taps the communicator in his ear to turn it off.

He’s in tights and an undershirt, paint splotches on his bare arms, and his hair is tousled by the wind from the roof.

“Vole you,” Tim says sleepily.

“Mmm.” Damian raises a hand like he can touch Tim through the screen. “Promise me you won’t fall asleep on that sofa, ya amar. It’s too short even for you. You’ll get back ache.”

Tim chuckles, and yawns again. “I’m comfortable.”

“You’ll be sticky and sore when you wake up. Wash up, lover. Put yourself to bed.”

“I wish you were here to look after me. Drag me to bed.”

“I did everything you asked. Now you have to do what I ask. Get up.”

Tim groans, but he rolls off the sofa and falls to hands and knees on the floor. He stumbles to his feet.

“Are you up?”

“I’m off the sofa, baby bat. I’m going to bed. It’s a good thing I’ve got a ground floor room, I tell you.” Tim picks the laptop up and balances it on his forearm. The little image of his own face shows how his hair is plastered to the side of his head, giving him a cockatiel style quiff. He hadn’t wanted Damian to see him like this, he remembers. Not that Damian hadn’t seen him look far, far worse, but Tim has a feeling that this is his second chance to make a first impression and he wanted it to be a better one than this.

“Bathroom first. Clean up, brush your teeth.”

“Stay on the line?”

“Of course, ya amar.”

Tim puts the laptop on the pillow on the bed, strips off his clothes, and meanders to the bathroom naked. He washes up, makes use of the facilities, cleans his teeth and fills a glass of water to put beside the bed. Damian will be pleased with him.

“Are you still there, baby bat?”

Tim drops into the bed, rolling up in the duvet like a burrito. He turns the laptop to face him and sees the audio only logo again. He buries his face in the pillow, lips millimetres from his laptop like he could kiss Damian good night. Outside, the night chorus is starting up. He hears the trilling of bats in the woods, and despite everything it’s comfortingly familiar.

“I’m still here. I've returned to the roof. Are you in bed?”

“Yes, my love.”

Damian sighs, a whisper of breath in Tim’s ear.

“What are you doing?” Tim asks, not ready to let his lover go just yet.

“Painting. Adding the detail to the picture I was working on earlier.”

“Describe it to me.”

“It’s San Francisco, from the Tower. The sky is cerulean, like your eyes, and the sea is turquoise in the summer sun. I’m leaning towards impressionism for the city itself; it’s a wash of sand and taupe, and now I’m picking out the lines of buildings in silver. There’s green…”

Tim sleeps, and dreams of colours.


	34. Interlude: Batman and Robin

Ra’s is trying to divide his family, and god help Bruce, the demon is succeeding.

Talia is still in the city. He sees her out of the corner of his eye sometimes, crossing the street behind him while he’s driving, through the window of the restaurant when he’s lunching with investors to reassure them after Wayne Enterprise’s recent bad press, in the box opposite his at the theatre during the interval. He hears her footsteps as he patrols at night, always a roof ahead of him, has to stomach Ivy making references to her presence while he grapples with venus fly traps, recognises her signature on the dead bodies GCPD investigates.

Barely three days have passed, but it feels like he’s been trapped in this nightmare for months. The darkness spirals back to Tim’s kidnapping, and he knows, rationally, he made some good memories during that period, but when he reaches for them they slip from his grasp, fluttering away to roost amongst the bats. All he’s left with is the guano.

Talia’s presence is keeping Jason away. Bruce isn’t sure which side his second son would take, and he feels a measure of relief that he doesn’t have to find out right now. His two youngest are united against him, his eldest is at his side, but heartsick and miserable for it. His girls have gone AWOL, and Duke has chosen this moment to announce he’s joining the Outsiders and going undercover and it’s definitely not related to anything else that’s going on and no one should call him and absolutely definitely no one should ask his opinion about anything.

Bruce has a lot of respect for Duke.

Talia is turning the city upside down, keeping the Batman busy, while the chaos his sons wrought at Wayne Enterprise has Bruce Wayne running from pillar to post. He recognises the tactic now as the same one Ra’s used to keep him from tackling Tim’s adoption. The problem is recognising it doesn’t help him deal with it: he can’t leave the innocent(ish) citizens of Gotham in Talia’s explosive clutches. That most of the team have left the city only compounds the issue.

This is what he feared about this summer, that at the end of it he’d have only the mission left. All of his children out of the house and living their own lives without him overshadowing them. 

He never thought it would come about like this, though, watching Beast Boy coax Batcow into Raven’s soul self.

How can Damian insist he’s mature enough to make the kind of choices he claims he has when he throws teenaged temper tantrums like this? This is not the measured reaction of a rational adult who wants to make a point. Damian has gone straight to the nuclear option, just as he did as a child.

“I can’t believe he’s moving out,” Dick mutters. “He can’t just move out.”

“Yeah, well,” Gar says, transforming back into his mostly human form. “It’s not like anyone else in this family has ever just turned eighteen and immediately moved into the Tower.” He tugs on an imaginary collar. “Do any of you ever do anything by half?”

Bruce has a sudden vision of Damian in Dick’s old Discowing costume.

He nearly laughs.

The urge shocks him. He hasn’t laughed in a long time. That kind of involuntarily expression of emotion has to be restrained, repressed. Laughter is too close to crying.

He misses Beast Boy and Raven’s departure, misses Dick’s reaction, because he’s the Batman and he’s losing his sons and everyone’s failing to take it seriously and he’s got a mental image of his youngest, collar up to his ears, plunging v down his chest, majestic mullet blowing in the wing, and a scowl that would melt steel.

He doesn’t laugh.

But it’s a near thing.

#

They’re eating a late breakfast in the manor’s kitchen. Dick is still sulking about having to come to Wayne Enterprises with him, and it’s a flashback to a decade ago, when Dick was his only child and thought Wayne Enterprises was a cruel and unusual punishment. Not allowed to do handstands, not allowed to jump off the furniture, not allowed to swing from the lights. And, okay, maybe Bruce did use office days as a way of forcing Dick to wind down after particularly lively patrols, but his father had done the same to him, and importantly, it worked.

“Your behaviour around your former teammates wasn’t ideal this morning. Ra’s is attempting to drive a wedge between this family. We don’t need to stoke the fires of gossip,” Bruce warns him. It’s strange without Titus begging for scraps, his feet oddly cold, his fingers twitching on his cutlery as each forkful he delivers to his mouth feels increasingly wrong. “We need to present a united front to prevent this situation from spiralling out of our control.”

They’re sharing the leftovers of last night’s take away. Alfred has his own way of making it very clear which side he’s taking.

He even provided Raven with a cat carrier.

“It’s ridiculous,” Dick says around a mouthful of cold fried rice, “that they lied to us for months, were so concerned with keeping it a secret, and now it seems like they’re telling every member of the community they’ve even so much as met eyes with.”

Bruce grits his teeth. He knows how quickly news spreads in the community. He’s already dodging calls from Clark, and it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the League appear on his doorstep to share their thoughts on marriage. Tim has a headstart in controlling the narrative, and the more people hear his side the harder Bruce will have to work to make them understand what really happened.

It would be easier if he were clear in his own mind.

He knows he’s mishandled this. He’s not too proud to admit that. He should have stayed silent, let the boys stew until they made a mistake, and he could confront them with the upper hand.

He should have acted sooner, when they came back from Turkey and lied to him. He should have called them on it. He should have treated them like the wayward children they are.

He should have seen the pattern in the growing crisis in Gotham, investigated the common pinch points, uncovered Ra’s involvement. He should have dealt with Tim’s adoption whether the boy wanted him to or not.

Dick’s thoughts must be following a similar line, because he breaks into Bruce’s reverie with, “Why didn’t you sort the adoption paperwork? I thought you had. Everyone thought you had.”

“Tim asked me not to.”

Dick raises an eyebrow.

Bruce sighs. “After Ra’s put them through… We didn’t know it was Ra’s before that. I should have dealt with it before that, but there wasn’t time.”

“Wasn’t time? How long does it take?”

“You know how long it takes. Even if Tim had been enthusiastic and willing we’d still be waiting months for an appointment. And he wasn’t.” Bruce swallows. “He never was. I leaned too hard on him in the first place and he caved because he thought it would earn my approval.”

“Bullshit, Bruce.”

“No. I thought I knew what was best for him after his father’s death, even when he kept putting up obstacles. He wasn’t prepared to accept a substitute parent while he was grieving - he thought I was asking him not to grieve. I hoped to make it clear I didn’t think he was at fault for his father’s death. That there was nothing he, or anyone else, could have done.”

It’s a lie. There are a hundred ways Bruce could have prevented Jack Drake’s death. If he hadn’t set Stephanie Brown up to incapacitate her so she had to quit, Tim would never have had to return to the role. If he had seen through Jean’s scheme to pass herself off as a potential victim rather than the murderer. If he had kept his, and by extension the Robins’, identity secret from the League Ray Palmer’s ex wife would never have had access to Tim’s civilian identity. If he hadn’t let the League brainwash him.

Jack Drake’s blood is not on Tim’s hands, and it kills Bruce to think he failed to prevent him feeling that way. That unlike his older brothers, Tim wasn’t Robin because he was orphaned, he was orphaned because he was Robin

“I didn’t want to make the same mistake this time. I made a worse one.”

He’d thought Tim would come to him when he was ready. He thought he’d done enough to earn Tim’s affection by now, despite all of his mistakes. All he’d done was leave himself open to a betrayal he knows he deserves.

“He’s your son, Bruce. That’s not a mistake. That was never a mistake. Don’t let Talia get in your head.”

“She hasn’t.”

The look Dick levels at him is loaded with disbelief.

“He was sixteen when he lost his father. Tim had a very different relationship with his birth parents to either you or Jason, and very different expectations about our relationship, as a result.”

“You didn’t see him when you were dead, Bruce. You didn’t see the hell he went through for you. He’s your son.”

“So is Damian.”

“Yes! That’s my point.”

“Tim didn’t go through hell for me, he went through it because of me. If I’d turned him away that first night he came to me, if I’d kept him out of the cave, if I’d told his _parents_. But I didn’t, and I drove him to this. I drove him to Ra’s.”

“Oh for- where’s Al? I’m not having this fight without back up.”

Alfred fails to materialise. The dirty dishes from last night remain in the sink. This morning’s will stay on the table.

“Did Alfred give you your letter from Damian?”

Dick looks down at his empty bowl, the wind taken out of him.

“Yeah.”

“Are you here because you agree with me, or are you here because you think you can change my mind?”

“Neither. Both. I don’t know.” Dick sighs. “I’m trying to detach from the situation and look at it rationally, and I don’t like what I see. I genuinely don’t think Tim has betrayed us - honestly, if he were going to, he’d have done it years ago when he had far more cause - but I have to be honest, I _feel_ betrayed.”

It is the kind of emotional insight Bruce relies on Dick for, untangling the sense of betrayal from the actual acts.

“You’re hurt that he lied to you.”

“Yes. I shouldn’t have sent him away, though.” He sketches a pattern on the table in spilled soy sauce. “He said some things that hit too close to home.”

“He has insight into all of us.”

“He said he wanted to tell us. That he was hiding this whole big, amazing thing that was happening in his life, and-” Dick breaks off. He stares around the kitchen as though he’s seeing it for the first time. He shivers. “God, I hate this place when there’s no one else here. How did we manage when it was just the two of us? I can’t imagine… No, it’s not a good time. Do you know where Tim is?”

“He left Redbird outside your Bludhaven apartment, and the Red Robin suit in one of Jason’s unused safe houses. The direction of travel suggests he was heading towards New York state. He hasn’t used any of his lines of credit, but he has been in touch with both Tam Fox and Lois Lane.” Bruce’s brow creases. Vale had alerted him to Tim’s interview with the Daily Planet. Even Clark hadn’t had the courage to leave a message to the same effect. “I asked Oracle to trace him back through the proxy server, but she says it will take some time.”

“Did you check the old Justice League base?”

“In Mount Justice? Yes. Undisturbed. The Justice Society haven’t heard from him.”

“I still have some connections in New York, if you want me to ask around.”

“If Tim doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.” What concerns Bruce more is that he also doesn’t have a trace on Ra’s. “I find it interesting that Damian has been so conspicuous about relocating to Titans Tower.”

A sad smile crosses Dick’s face. “He’s much more the rub-it-in-your-face sort of mad, isn’t he?”

“He feels secure there.”

“Are you going to go get him back?”

“As long as he is visibly there, it is unnecessary. Talia remains in Gotham.”

“God, she’s like a spider. Like, i wish she wasn’t here at all, but as long as she’s around I’d rather have her in my sights than disappearing under the bed.” Dick licks congealed sauce from his forefinger. “What’s the plan, B? What do we do next? We can’t just sit here and wait with Talia running around the city.”

“We need to rein her in,” Bruce acknowledges. “But the boys we leave alone. I acted too fast before. Now we let them wait.”

Dick’s mouth twists. “I hope Jason comes back soon. He’s the only one of us apart from Alfred who can cook.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tim: Bruce isn't my father! I'm nothing like him! ::angsts::  
> Bruce: I failed my son, Tim. He's nothing like me! ::angsts harder:: Laughter is how the Joker weeps!  
> Alfred: Oh no, we appear to be out of tomatoes. I'll just pop out and get some. From Tuscany. ::puts on sunhat, picks up Italian phrase book, snaps open sunglasses:: Ciao, bitches.
> 
> Which is to say Bruce is peak angst. In fact, this is probably the literal peak of angst in this fic - from here on the levels of angst start to wind back down again. 
> 
> (Alfred probably isn't in Tuscany, but he's sure as hell not dealing with Bruce while he's Being Like This)


	35. In which Tim has to explain himself, with a little social lubricant

Tim wakes to the murmur of voices. He keeps his heart beat and breathing steady and extends his senses into the corridor. Two male voices, at least one female.

One voice peaks with “but HE **SAID** THEY were” and gets shushed quiet.

Bart.

Now he has that information, it doesn’t take long to identify Kon and Steph. He’s confident there’s someone else there too, someone who isn’t talking but is still taking up space in the conversation. Cassie, maybe.

No, Cass.

Ah fuck.

He rolls onto his back and stares up. In the other room, Kon must react nonverbally, because they all fall silent.

“I’m awake,” Tim calls out.

He’s naked, and he never unpacked properly, so his bag with all his clean clothes in is in the hotel lounge.

“Are you coming out?” Steph calls.

“Ha. Ha.”

The door bangs open, and Bart’s on top of him, straddling Tim’s knees and staring down at him. Tim is very conscious of how thin the sheet is.

“Hi,” Tim says weakly. “Um. Could you get my clothes?”

“Literally everyone here has seen you naked,” Steph says, walking in and plopping down on the edge of the mattress.

“That’s not the point.” Tim props himself up on his elbows as Kon and Cass enter the bedroom as well. It’s a small room, mostly bed. It’s a good bed, and a big bed, and Tim’s really been enjoying it until now, especially the fact it’s pressed against two walls. There’s a window high on the wall opposite the foot of the bed, a dresser underneath it that’s too close to the bed for the drawers to open properly.

Cass climbs over Tim to settle against the wall on the other side of the bed. Kon hovers, literally, in the doorway. His arms are folded over his chest and there’s pain in his tense frame. Tim adds another check against the list of people he hurt.

“I would really like some clothes,” Tim says.

“No,” says Cass. “The balance of power is on our favour. It is better for us.” She takes a pillow out from behind Tim’s head and cuddles it to her chest.

Tim yanks on the sheet, dislodging Bart, and does his best to make a toga out of it without flashing anyone in the process.

“You guys want to talk about me and Damian.”

“Do you have a wedding ring? I think I’d have noticed a wedding ring, but I wasn’t looking for one, so maybe I didn’t. Did you elope? Do you have an elopement ring?”

“I have Ra’s late wife’s engagement ring,” Tim says. “Which, since it’s six hundred years old, is currently in a safe deposit box in Gotham. It wasn’t an elopement. It’s not even a legal marriage in the outside world, just the League of Assassins.”

“You didn’t put that in the email,” Steph says tartly.

“I’m sorry,” Tim addresses her directly. “About the email header. I meant to change it, but I was tired and missed it. It wasn’t a reference to anything else.”

“You sent me, and only me, the ‘if you’re reading this I’m dead’ email, and I’m supposed to believe that wasn’t deliberate?”

“Shit, you what?” Kon drops to the floor.

“I have some emails set up, just in case, and I knew it had some nice stuff in, so I was going to copy some bits and it seemed easier to just edit it and… Look, I had to try and tell everyone before the news got ahead of me, and I was running on fumes and I know I should have just called but I couldn’t face being yelled at over and over for corrupting Damian and-”

Cass puts a finger on his lips, and Tim stills.

“You know what would have made that easier?” Kon snaps. “If you’d just fucking told people. Even the Daily Planet’s intern knew before I did!”

“I thought Bernard was the intern? Cissie said he got that. Did he get that? How did he know before we did?”

Cass puts her other hand over Bart’s mouth, earning her a smile from the rest of the party.

“Bernard _is_ the Daily Planet intern, and he-” what’s the best way to convey this without making it sound like he picked Bernard ahead of his other friends? “-found out by accident. How did you know that he knows?”

“Clark.” Kon glares at him. “You know why I’m here? Clark called because he’d heard the whole conversation between you and the intern and he was worried, and I had to admit I had no fucking idea what he was on about. I called half a dozen people before I finally just went to Gotham and Black Bat pounced on me. You didn't send me an email, not even a 'you died once' once.”

“Kon told me,” Bart says. He doesn’t add anything else, just lets it hang in the air.

Tim swallows.

“Oh for- this isn’t a game of who Tim was the worst friend to,” Steph says. “We get it, boys. Everyone’s butthurt. We’re losing focus here.”

Kon huffs. “You know what really bothers me? I was all ready to protect you from Damian, to make sure he wasn’t treating you like he treated Jon, but this is all you, isn’t it? You’re the one being creepy and secretive. First time you took your mask off around us you were wearing another one underneath. We found out your name from an alternate timeline. You even tried to keep it a secret when- Nevermind.

"For some reason we keep telling you shit. I can’t deal with this, Rob. _You_ told _me_ about my own DNA; I can’t deal with always being an open book to you when you never let me in past the surface. I get it, you’re a Bat, you don’t-.”

Cass moves so quickly even Bart is surprised, and Kon is left clutching his nose with shock and awe written across his face.

“Pregnable,” Cass says, and laughs at a joke no one else is in on. Kon blinks at her slowly.

“Huh,” he says. “You remember that?”

“Remember the company you are in,” Cass says, settling back against the wall again. “Tim is Tim. We are Bats.”

Kon eyes her warily. “Yeah. Sure. Everyone knows the Batgirls are hyper competent completely together goddesses deigning to walk amongst us mere mortals, and bat boys are just hot messes.”

Steph chuckles. “Hell yeah. Case in point.” She tugs on the sheet suddenly, and only Tim’s bat-reflexes keep him from being completely exposed. He clutches the last remaining corner of the sheet to his crotch and glares at her.

“I don’t think you deserve that sheet,” Steph says. “You’ve made all of us feel stupid and embarrassed. Now you gotta bare all.”

“Emotionally, not physically,” Tim says.

“So start baring,” Steph says. “Time to tell all, boy husband.”

“Wait, not yet.” Bart disappears. Tim takes advantage to gather more of the bed clothes into his lap. “Back!”

Bart dumps a huge Cinnabons box on the bed. He settles himself crosslegged on top of Tim’s feet and empties half the box down his throat before slowing down enough to start sharing. Even Kon is tempted closer by the pastries, flying over the bed to sit between Tim and the wall, next to Cass. Tim feels the weight of TTK slide over him. Steph swings her legs up onto the bed, boxing Tim in from the other side.

Bart’s gone and back again, this time with a bottle of bourbon and crate of craft beer.

Tim helps himself to a cinnamon bun and a takes a shot straight from the bottle of bourbon before passing it on. Bart hands him a bottle of beer; Kon uses his TTK to pop the cap for him.

“So, a few months back news broke that the paperwork had never been filed probably for my adoption…”

#

“...I’m looking for a place where we can have however any of Damian’s pets that fit. I mean, I’d love a sea view, but actually with relaunching Drake Industries I’m asset rich and cash poor, so I’m looking further out of the city for now.”

Bart snorts. “You have such a billionaire’s idea of being poor,” he says.

The cinnabons are long gone, the bed covered in frosting and crumbs. The room is too hot with five people in it. Kon has spent most of Tim’s monologue watching Cass, Steph is braiding Tim’s hair, Bart keeps fuzzing in and out when he hits his capacity for staying still, and Tim’s still naked. The sheets pooled around his waist are barely containing his dignity, and he doesn’t care any more, not after sharing all the most vulnerable parts of him.

It probably helps he’s pretty drunk right now. Somehow the bourbon bottle managed to pass through his hands more often than anyone else’s.

It appears in his hands again, and he takes a long swig.

Steph points a wavering finger at Cass. “Verdict?”

“Love,” she says. “You can’t see it?”

“Yeah, but he could be… I dunno.”

“Happy. Relaxed.” Cass leans over and pokes the side of Tim’s waist. “Newlywed spread.”

Tim squirms away from Cass’s bony fingers. “I’m a perfectly healthy weight.”

“Yes. Not underweight any more,” Cass says. “Regular meals.”

“Damian looks after me.”

“You’re very domestic,” Bart says. “Or, sort of, you like playing domesticity at each other? He makes sure your place is clean and you eat regularly and you do boudoir shoots for him but you haven’t lived together since you were a teenager and right now you can disengage before you hit the hard bits though I guess you disengaged too far which is why the fight and you've said you'll do better but sooner or later you’re going to have to actually compromise about something, like how to load the dishwasher or who’s turn it is to empty the cat litter and it won’t be sexily taking care of each other anymore, it’ll just be… life. You know?”

“Woah,” Kon says. “Truth bomb.”

Tim slumps against Steph. “He looks after me,” he says in a small voice.

“You need looking after, you hot mess,” Steph says fondly. She tickles his ear with the end of one of the braids she’s put in his hair. “You know if you figure out the most efficient way to load the dishwasher, Dames will do what you say. And then after he’s put you to bed, he’ll reload it because he thinks he knows what’s best for you.”

“That’s what I don’t like. Deciding on your behalf what you need.” Kon waves his beer expansively, sloshing luke warm suds over the bed. “You do it.”

“I know.”

“Damian likes it,” Cass says. “He likes structure. Tim likes rules. They fit.”

“He takes instruction well,” Tim says into Steph’s shoulder. He shouldn’t be telling them this. It’s personal. It’s private. “‘sprivate.”

“Like, in a kinky way?” Bart asks. He’s just downed a shot and his eyes are glassy, but even as Tim watches it fades. His metabolism is keeping him much more sober than the rest of the group, which makes him seem like some kind of zen master to drunk Tim’s mind.

Tim might be drunk, but he’s not drunk enough to answer that. Take that, sober Bart! You have been outwitted!

“Ow twitted,” Tim mumbles. “Twit twoo.”

“We’re all taking that as a yes, right?” Steph says. She pulls Tim in closer, cradling him against her chest. She’s warm and smells of kevlar, which is reassuring and unnerving at the same time. “Babe, are you seriously moving to San Francisco with him? Like, leaving Gotham?”

Tim blinks at the curve of Steph’s breast. “College.”

“Yeah, but.” Steph shifts. “You just finished the whole college thing, and Damian’s just starting. If he’s serious about being a doctor, you could be living there for years.”

Cass pulls Tim’s hair. He thinks she might be unbraiding it, but maybe she’s just mad at him.

“Damian took the animals this morning,” she says. “Titus. Pennyworth. Bandit. Batcow. Bruce’s empty nest has been defeathered.”

“Batcow?” Tim turns to squint at Cass. She’s leaning pretty heavily on Kon.

“Batcow is now living in Kansas,” Kon says. “Like, he’s bought Jon off with a cow to distract him from all this.”

“Jon dumped him,” Tim says. “Why should Jon get Batcow?”

“It’s gonna have ‘bat calves’,” Kon says, air quotes lopsided and sloppy.

“It’s gonna suck if you move to San Francisco,” Steph says. “Who’s gonna go through my tinder matches with me? Who’s gonna bring tequila and ice cream over when I’ve got cramps?”

“Pre med there, and then we’ll see,” Tim says, trying to push down the ball of homesickness that’s rising in his throat. “Gotham has a good medical programme. All our supervillains are MDs.” He pats Steph on the shoulder. “I’ll fly you first class to San Francisco. We’ll have tequila and ice cream there. Whole new range of tinder matches to mock. You could join the Titans.”

Steph wrinkles her nose. “Oh god, I’d be the mom. Batmom. No thanks.”

“I’m still not-”

“Oh, shut up.” Bart throws a pillow at Kon, hitting him in the face. His impregnable forcefield is taking a battering today. “We’re on their side. Of course we’re on their side. If we’re not on their side, the only person who is is Ra’s. We’re not throwing Tim to the creepy eight hundred year old wolf.”

“Oh god,” Tim says. “Do you think that was his plan all along? To separate us from the family? To make us want to go to him?”

Bart shrugs. “You’ve got an evil grandfather too now! It’s basically a club.”

“Worst club ever,” Kon says. “But, yes, point taken. Fine. Tim, you want to marry the demon spawn? I’ll stand by you. I’ll defend you against Batman, and Superman, and all the ninjas you want, on one condition.”

“Condition?” Tim is too drunk for conditions.

Kon taps the S-shield. “Best man,” he says.

“Woah! No way.” Bart lunges across the bed towards Kon. “You’re only even accepting this begrudgingly! I’m way more supportive!”

“I’ve been his best friend for longer, and-”

Steph flattens Tim to the mattress as she pushes her way between them. “Oldest friend here! Dibs!”

“You can’t be his best man! You’re not a man!”

“Oh, don’t even start with that gendered wedding industrial complex bullshit, Alabama.”

“You’re his ex-girlfriend! It’d be weird!”

“Oh come on, Kansas, like nothing ever went down between you.”

“I’m sorry, _Gotham_ , to burst your bubble, but-”

“Did it? Dudes, you’d have told me if it did, wouldn’t you? Kon, Tim? Guys?”

Tim puts a pillow over his face.

Cass lies down next to him, pressing against his side. Tim puts his arm out and she nestles against his shoulder.

“You’ve lost your sheet,” she whispers.

“My sheet, my dignity, my mind, my heart.” Tim sighs. “How long until the three stooges notice, do you think?”

“Kon will move back, Steph will lean forward, she will lose her balance, put her hand-”

Tim yelps as the heel of Steph’s palm slams into his delicate organ. Steph screams and jerks her hand back, but without anything to hold her up she topples forwards and headbutts Kon in the nose. He shoves outwards in all directions with his TTK, which throws Bart off the bed and sends Steph tumbling backwards, tangled in Tim’s lost sheet. She flails and grabs everything she can get her hands on, which turns out to be Cass’s skirt and the bottle of bourbon. Cass kicks up, actually caught by surprise for once - Tim has to assume that everyone’s body language is as slurred and incomprehensible as their spoken - which sends the last few bottles of beer flying. One smashes against the wall, another hits Bart on the head as he tries to claw his way back onto the bed, and a third explodes when Kon’s heat vision hits it.

The room quiets slowly, glass tinkling, beer trickling, bed creaking.

Bart climbs to his feet and puts a hand out to haul Steph out from where she’s wedged against the wall. Kon hovers above the bed. Cass extracts herself from the sopping wet sheets.

Tim blinks at his friends.

“Pants,” he says. “I told you I needed pants.”

#

Eventually Tim is allowed to get dressed and they decamp to the hotel lounge. They bring all the sheets and pillows and blankets from the hotel rooms, and construct an epic fort. Bart fetches pizza and more beer, and they watch Wendy the Werewolf Slayer and take turns losing to Cass at pool, which she swears she’s never played before. Steph braids everyone’s hair into increasingly elaborate shapes (unearthing three different lightning-bolt barrettes Bart has apparently had in his bird’s nest for months). Kon makes sure everyone drinks some water before they fall asleep, because he’s the mom-friend.

Tim claims the pool table, because as the shortest person there he needs to the most space to stretch out - the others are drunk enough to buy it - and balances his laptop on his chest.

There’s an email from Damian with two picture attachments. One is the view over San Francisco from the tower, exactly as he pictured it from Damian’s description. He feels the warmth of the late afternoon sunlight reflected out of the screen on his skin, hears the waves and the seagulls and the distant rumble of the city, smells the ozone in the air. It’s hard to tell from the attachment how large the original painting is, but Tim has already mentally framed it and hung it in their imaginary breakfast nook (which their imaginary apartment has suddenly acquired).

The other attachment is-

Tim slams the laptop shut and stares around the room. Kon is snoring. Steph and Cass are whispering to each other in their blanket fort. Bart’s gone for a run.

Tim reopens the laptop slowly.

Damian’s used a watercolour wash to imply skin and shade and hair and highlights, warm copper and gold tones. Over the top he’s used india ink for to portray himself. His long, thick cock rises from a cross hatch of pubes to stand erect against the smooth lines of his muscled thigh. Paper shines through the paint at the head of his cock like light gleaming off a bead of precum.

“Wow.”

Tim slams the laptop shut again and turns to glare at Bart. Bart grins at him, unabashed.

“Wow at Damian’s skill,” he says, “but also wow at his physique. I mean, I assume that’s a self portrait? It’d be weird if he was sending you paintings of other people’s dicks, unless that’s a thing you’re into together.”

“It’s Da- it’s not _for_ you,” Tim hisses.

“You’re the one looking at erotic art in the middle of a public room,” Bart points out.

“I was checking my emails.”

Bart hops onto the edge of the pool table. “Why are you here? I mean, why aren’t you there?”

Tim puts his laptop to the side and pulls his knees up, looping his arms around them.

“Batman thinks I engineered this. The relationship, the marriage. He thinks I’ve tricked Damian into it to further Ra’s ends.”

“Seriously?”

“Sometimes I think he doesn’t know Damian very well,” Tim says wryly, “if he thinks Damian would fall for that.”

Bart shrugs. “You’re the smartest person I know. If you wanted to trick Damian, you could.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“You wouldn’t do it for Ra’s, though. If anything, you’d trick Ra’s too.”

Tim stares down at the green felt.

“Is this really what everyone thinks of me? That I’m some master manipulator?”

“Dude, you have multiple plans for taking all of us down. You have fake plans for taking all of us down, in case someone steals them, because you’re smarter than Batman and don’t write the real shit down. You figured out Batman’s identity when you were nine. You’ve outwitted yourself from alternate timeline. The Riddler has a fansite dedicated to you.”

“Really?”

“Well, a tumblr. It’s really cute. He’s in a tag war with Harley Quinn over their favourite Robin.”

Tim purses his lips and cocks his head to the side. He’s going to take it as a compliment. Eddie’s not a bad guy when he takes his meds. He's the only person apart from Ra's and himself to figure out Batman's identity without some kind of psychic power, timeslip or alternate universe. Or being told.

“Being mad at you for being you is weird,” Bart says. “Like, being eighteen steps ahead and also a hot mess is your thing. If that’s not why Damian is into you, then you guys have a problem, but it clearly is so you don’t. So why are you here instead of at the Tower with him?”

It takes Tim a minute to remember the answer. “I’m hiding from Batman.” He frowns. “How did you guys know I was here?”

“Remember Paris? We looked. Like, sure, Batman can stick trackers on everything he likes, but he doesn’t have x-ray vision or super hearing. The girls figured out how long you’d had to travel, I ran the distances to narrow down the area, and then Kon used his powers to find you. I mean, Batman probably knows you’re here now, because we could have been subtler, but...” Bart shrugs. “He knows where Damian is, and he hasn’t gone there.”

“He isn’t mad at Damian. Well, not as mad.”

“What’s he going to do to you? What can he do to you?”

It’s a weird question to consider. Bruce can’t take Red Robin from him; even if it weren’t Tim’s own, he basically quit. He can’t throw him out of the mansion because Tim doesn’t live there. He can’t fire Tim from Wayne Enterprises because Tim has launched Drake Industries.

Bart blinks slowly, waiting for him to answer.

“He could make a fuss out of costume. Accuse me of statutory rape. Remind everyone we were legally brothers, which makes it incest.” He glances at Bart. “Neither of which is true. We’re not brothers, and he was eighteen.”

“Well, that’s for the best,” Bart says diplomatically. “Do you think Batman would lie to the press?”

“He does it every day.” Tim lets it hang in the air for a second, measures his reaction to his own words, and sighs. “But he’s not going to take this to the press. The backlash would be insane, and Clark or Lois would smack some sense into him if he tried.”

“Or Iris or Linda,” Bart adds. “I mean, they don’t know what’s going on yet, but they’ll be on your side. I’ll make sure of that.”

“I stood on a roof and yelled at him, Bart. I summoned him to talk, but I just stood there and unloaded every single thing that’s ever bothered me and then left. And now I have no idea what he’s thinking or doing or planning, because instead of actually having a conversation about marrying his son like reasonable adults and explaining that it was consensual and apologising for keeping it secret I told him he was a bad father and I miss my spleen and then I jumped off the roof and ran away.”

It’s a long sentence, and Tim takes a second to remember how to breathe again afterwards.

“Tim?”

“Yes?”

“You should get some sleep, then in the morning, I’m going to run you over to Damian at the Tower, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Also, you should talk to Cassie, because I’m pretty certain the Amazon’s purple ray could give you a new spleen.”

“I’ve actually got kinda used to it. Are you going to sleep?”

“I took a nap while you were thinking about what Batman might do to you.” Bart ruffles Tim’s hair. “You had that thinking face that means it’s going to take you a second, so I figured I had time.”

“I thought it was weird to actually see you blink.”

“You’re a long way out of it if you’re missing stuff like that,” Bart says. “If you wanna jerk off to Damian’s ‘art’ go to the bathroom, okay?” He gives Tim a squeeze around his shoulders. “I’ve got a sudden craving for paella, so I’m going to run over to Spain for a snack.”

“I’m not going jerk off,” Tim grumbles. “I’m not gross.”

“Yeah you are. But the genius kind of gross, so we love you. Go to sleep.”

Bart stays as Tim settles back down on the pool table. It's reassuring to know his friends are looking out for him. Reassuring enough that drifting off to sleep is the easiest it's been in months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drunk Tim is the best Tim! If you need a reason Wonder Girl hasn't made it, she and the other YJ girls are hanging out in Cissie's hotel room (she's shooting a film) and gossiping about how she's hooked up with a time travelling Bart and whether she should tell current Bart.
> 
>  
> 
> [Pregnable line comes from a 90s Superboy comic.](http://itdans.tumblr.com/post/146704721503/she-she-got-past-my-force-field-my-impregnable)
> 
>  
> 
> On some level I'll always be a Bart/Tim shipper (though Cissie/Tim is one of my few het ships). Bart's just a precious cinnamon roll and I really hope DC dno't ruin him now they've brought him back.


	36. In which our heroes are finally reunited

Something is wrong with his uniform. He can’t put his finger on it, but when Damian looks in the mirror he knows something is fundamentally not right. He pulls his hood up, drops it down, tugs on his sleeves, relaces his boots, but nothing is quite right.

Oh god, he hasn’t grown again, has he? His height has been steady for months, but he wouldn’t put it past his treacherous body to throw a final growth spurt at him now, when replacing elements of his uniform is going to be especially awkward.

“Hey, Damian, are you coming?”

Jon leans in his doorway, arms crossed loosely over the S Shield.

“Have we changed laundry detergent here recently?” Damian asks, picking at the leg of his tights.

“Don’t think so. I mean, I take mine home, so I dunno.” Jon grins at him. “No one’s going to wash your costume but you, dude. We know it’s booby-trapped.”

Damian sighs. He resettles his cape over his shoulders, but can’t stop twitching underneath it. He hates the weight of it suddenly, the way it reminds him of childhood, hiding in the hood and lurking behind his father. He wants to tear it off. He wants to tear it all off.

“Dami, are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” He doesn’t mean to say it, and he certainly doesn’t mean to sound so pathetic saying it.

Jon steps into the room and kicks the door closed behind him.

“Talk to me,” he says.

“I can’t! I don’t know what’s wrong.” Damian rips his cape from his shoulders and throws it to the floor. “I feel like _I’m_ wrong, but that can’t be true.”

Jon snorts, and Damian glares at him.

“God, to have that kind of self-confidence,” Jon says. “When did this kick in?”

Damian doesn’t know. Forever? Thirty seconds ago?

“This isn’t anything to do with Tim.”

Jon wisely doesn’t comment on that.

Damian picks his cape up, runs the hood between his finger and thumb.

“When I got dressed,” he says, “but also for some time before that, though I was unable to distinguish it from other sources of unease in my life. Now I have dealt with those, this sensation has come to the fore.”

“Something you associate more with being Robin, then?”

“Something… Oh.” Damian’s shoulders slump. It’s so obvious, and so terrifying. “It’s being Robin.”

“You don’t want to be Robin any more?”

His heart is pounding and his gut churns, but he forces himself to say the words out loud. “I don’t want to be Robin any more.”

It ought to be a relief to confront it, but it isn’t.

“Because of your dad?”

Damian shakes his head. “No. Because… because Robin is the Boy Wonder, and I’m not a boy any more.”

“Ah, Boy Problems,” Jon says. He flashes Damian a grin before Damian can get irritated with him. “Kon had the same thing. Maybe you should talk to him?”

It’s not a terrible idea. All of Damian’s brothers had Robin taken from them. He doesn’t have a model for giving it up.

“Look, we’ve got to get over to Alcatraz,” Jon says. “Stay here, okay?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Damian says. “I’m uncomfortable, not incapacitated.”

“It might be good for the rest of the team,” Jon says. “Maggie Marvel is still terrified of you, Jai is mad at you because of the mess Titus made of his lab, Milagro is pissed because she can’t stop sneezing, and Iris has three separate bites from Bandit. _Everyone’s_ uncomfortable.”

Damian sighs. “I underestimated how much animal proofing Pennyworth performed on the Batcave,” he admits. “They are still recovering from the trip through Raven’s soulself, and require more attention to become settled, especially around so many new strangers.”

“So stay here. Vacuum up the cat hair. Catch Bandit. For god’s sake walk Titus; I can hear him whining at the door from here. We can cope without you.”

Galling as it is to admit, they can. The Titans don’t need a Robin.

“What will you tell the others?”

“That we’re sneaking out without you. They’ll think it’s some kind of training exercise you’ve set.” Jon grins and punches Damian lightly in the shoulder. “Seriously, everyone knows you’re going through some stuff; no one minds putting up with a bit of disruption. If you want to take the day off, that’s fine.”

It’s not fine. It makes Damian feel faintly ill just thinking about it.

“I’m not absenting myself from my duties,” Damian says. “But… I might put some time aside this morning to ensure the Tower constitutes a good habitat for the creatures in my care.”

“That sounds like self care to me,” Jon says. “It’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. We’ll call if we need you, okay?”

Damian nods. He resolves to remain in costume, in case he is required at short notice. Perhaps he can push through the discomfort, if he works at it, and find a way to make peace with being Robin again. 

#

Bart leaves Tim on the roof of the Tower. Damian’s easel is still set up but the roof is deserted. According to the computer the Titans are dealing with a prison transfer to Alcatraz, so Tim expects the Tower to be empty.

He wanders down to the main room and drops his bag next to the sofa. They had cold paella for breakfast (hanging out with Bart really widens your definition of breakfast) and picked up some hash browns at a diner somewhere in the Rockies that were going to be a treat for the Titans, but there’s only one left now.

Tim pulls his laptop out of his bag, eats his hash brown, wipes hashbrown crumbs off his chest, wipes the same crumbs off the laptop, and emails Tam to approve her choice of Gotham office and acknowledge the shortlist of San Francisco options.

His knee is warm and increasingly wet. Tim moves his laptop and sees Titus slobbering over his leg, cleaning Tim’s jeans of hashbrown bits. Frankly, at this point if someone told him the feeding of the five thousand had been done with a single potato product from Idaho Tim wouldn’t bat an eyelid.

“Ya amar.”

Tim falls off the sofa.

Damian is at his side in an instant.

Tim stares at him. His chest heaves but he feels like he’s not taking any air in. The world narrows like it does before a faint, the edges of his vision filling with static.

“Breathe, Tim,” Damian says, and leans in to press his open mouth to Tim’s. He exhales gently, and Tim swallows the air from Damian’s lungs like a drowning man.

He pulls back, takes a proper breath, then dives back in for a real kiss.

Damian’s lips are warm and dry and a little chapped. Tim licks at the sore skin, and Damian deepens the kiss, leaning over Tim and pressing him against the side of the sofa.

Tim slides an arm around Damian’s neck and encounters the hood of his Robin costume. He tangles his hand in it and pulls Damian flush against him.

He’s not sure how long they kiss for, but when Damian pulls back his neck audibly clicks.

“I love you,” Tim says. “Oh god, Damian, I’m so sorry for everything. I love you.”

“I’m sorry also,” Damian says. He’s wearing his full Robin costume, even his domino.

Tim reaches up and eases the mask off Damian’s face.

Damian stands up and extends a hand to help Tim off the floor.

“I had to see you. I couldn’t stay away any longer.” Tim peels Damian’s glove off so he can feel the warmth of his hand. “I know, after everything I said- I mean, i know we’ve talked, but it’s not the same on the phone, and I understand if you need more time, if you aren’t ready to see me yet…”

“I was most angry at being kept apart from you. It would be cutting off my nose to spite my face to avoid you now.”

Damian says it so matter-of-factly that Tim doubts his own memory for a moment.

“That was before I said those things,” Tim says.

Damian’s eyes shine. “Do you want to have this conversation now?”

Tim considers. It would be easy to throw himself into Damian’s arms and lose themselves. They don’t have to do this now. Maybe they don’t have to do it ever. They could just pick up where they left off, put it behind them, and deal with the problems ahead of them instead.

The temptation is so strong that Tim knows immediately it’s the wrong path.

“Yes,” says Tim. “Yes, I think we have to.”

Damian’s still holding Tim’s hand. He moves to the Tower’s kitchen, gently towing Tim along behind him. He lets go to carefully lift down a french press and a small teapot, eyes locked on Tim’s all the while.

“You were holding back,” Damian says over his shoulder. “We both know you could have levelled far worse at me, even after I started pushing you.”

“I didn’t want to spend the short time we had together criticising your plans, so I repressed my concerns. They… all came out at once. Amongst other things.”

Damian puts the tea kettle on to boil, and turns, leaning against kitchen counter.

“Nothing you haven’t said to me before, or I to you.” Tim stares down at his feet. As soon as Damian had called him ‘weak’ he’d been reaching into those memories, fishing for the old insults that experience taught him landed hardest. He’d just wanted to shut Damian down before he could do any more damage. That’s how Tim fights: efficient, in and out, offence as defence. And he knew precisely how to offend Damian.

“But that’s not who we are any more.”

“We still have the potential to be, though. It was a nasty reminder.”

“If this is to work, we have to guard ourselves against that.”

The kettle starts to whistle. Damian pours the agitated water over the tea leaves, then pauses, letting it cool a little before filling the french press.

Tim’s never had a fight this bad in a relationship that didn’t take a near death situation to resolve. That they’re even talking is a headtrip, despite everything over the last few days, and he’s almost giddy with the idea of it.

Damian pulls a familiar part of festive robin mugs out of the cupboard and fills them both. 

“Where did you get those?”

“Ebay.”

Tim returns to the sofa and Damian brings the drinks over. They sit side by side. Titus heaves himself up next to Damian, flopping his head and upper body over both their laps.

“I was walking him,” Damian says. “Did the clone bring you?”

“Bart.”

Damian raises an eyebrow.

“Quicker,” Tim says. “Steph, Cass, Kon and Bart found me at the old Young Justice headquarters in the Catskills and quizzed me about our relationship.”

“And then you came here?”

“And then we got drunk, watched Wendy and built a blanket fort.”

“So you won them round.” Damian smiles into his coffee. “That’s good. It’s good to know.”

“It’s a relief, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t do well with Bruce. I yelled at him.”

“I left him a letter. I left letters for everyone.” Damian unclips his cloak so he can sit more comfortably. “Writing them, I was reminded of Turkey. Of how we had so much time to talk, and how well we communicated. We’ve made mistakes since then, but I have faith we can make this work.”

He pulls a piece of paper from his tunic.

“Communicating with father means giving him time to process information, I’ve found.”

Tim accepts it and unfolds it. It’s a draft, crossing outs and smudges that Tim knows his husband wouldn’t dream of allowing in a finished product, and it’s addressed “Dear Father”.

__

_~~I am happy when~~ _

_Though my grandfather laid the marriage out as an ultimatum, in truth Timothy and I were already close to initiating a relationship. There has been a mutual understanding between us for some time, and a growing attraction based on respect and honesty. I cannot put a precise date on it, but I believe I have been in love with him for more than a year now._

_~~I am strongest~~ _

_~~We are sorry~~ _

_I apologise that you had to find out from mother, rather than from us. Please do not think we intended to disrespect you; we were on the cusp of telling you ourselves. As the world’s finest detective, and the man who knows us best, you will have identified that we had kept something from you, and were no doubt already close to the truth of the matter. I am sorry that our secrecy caused you to misconstrue the truth of the matter, and I acknowledge we only have ourselves to blame for that._

_~~What he see in~~ _

_Grandfather’s scheme pushed us past the fear of social approbation and allowed us to acknowledge our feelings for each other. Since then, we have spent much of our time together trying to find the best way to break the news to you and the rest of the family, and to do what we can to mitigate the impact on public relations. ~~We had your best interests at heart~~ This is why Tim distanced himself from the family, refused your offer to make him legally your son (which wounded him as grievously as it has you), and spin off Drake Industries. He believes that it is possible to create a narrative that puts our former brotherhood out of public memory in favour of a board room romance._

_I know the fight we had cast doubt in your mind, but now that you know what the state of things between us are I trust that we will find the time and space we need to repair the damage secrecy has done to our relationship. We took vows in Turkey to form a true partnership, and this fight is merely another step down the path we have committed to following together. We will learn from it, and we will grow._

_I am happiest when I make him happy. I am strongest when I am working in tandem with him. I am my best self when I see what he sees in me._

_I want to assure you that I remain your faithful son and partner. I have and am a husband now. This new relationship does not displace my existing ones, but lies alongside them. It has been a revelation to me that I am capable of so much love, and I know now that my store of it is limitless._

_Yours_

_Damian Al Ghul Wayne Drake_

Tim holds the paper to his chest so the tears running down his face and falling to his lap don’t mark it. It doesn’t matter that it’s a draft, that it’s not meant for him.

“Tim?”

“I am my best self when I see what you see in me,” Tim says. “Damian, I don’t even know what you see in me right now, but I know it’s better than what I see and I want to live up to that.” He leans over and kisses Damian, tasting bitter tea and sweet brown sugar on his tongue. He inhales Damian’s scent, revelling in it. “I love you. I’m sorry I did not make time for you, to talk with you. I’m sorry that I kept pushing forward with a plan I knew you were uncomfortable with. I’m sorry that when you tried to object I found excuses to cut the conversation short. I’m sorry that I kept pushing you away.”

“I’m sorry I let you,” Damian says.

“No, don’t-”

“I _am_. You think I didn’t know what you were doing? But I was convinced that any conflict between us was a sign I was falling back into bad habits. It was easier to let you keep on with a path I doubted and blame you for my frustration than it was to take action myself.” Damian offers Tim a wry smile. “The things we hate most in other people are the things we hate most in ourselves.”

“That’s familiar,” Tim says. “As soon as you started in on the old Robin fight, it dragged all those old insecurities back up. It always drove me nuts, seeing how much you struggled with the weight of the legacy. It reminded me of how hard it was to push past the imposter syndrome with Jason’s suit in the cave.”

They share a grimace.

“Were you patrolling, earlier?”

“Walking Titus. The others are covering active duties.”

“Are you injured?”

“No. I just… I didn’t feel like it.” Damian stares down at his lap. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be Robin. It doesn’t fit like it used to.”

“Bruce thought your restlessness was a sign you were preparing to spread your wings.” Tim runs a finger over the R on Damian’s chest. “I don’t think I’ll put the R on again, red or otherwise.”

“Are you going to stay here?” Damian asks.

Tim swallows. “We don’t have to spend any more time apart. Unless you don’t want to? I’m happy with whatever you want. I can get an AirBNB in the city. Or take one of the spare rooms here. Or stay in yours. Whatever you want.”

“You don’t sound happy,” Damian says. “You sound terrified.”

“We’ve spent more time together this past month than we have in years, and it lead to _that_.” Tim chews on his bottom lip. “It does scare me, Damian. We didn’t reach a place of mutual respect until I moved out. What if we can’t make it work when we spend time together? What if we just… go backwards?”

Damian considers. “I think there is no way of knowing until we do it.”

“That’s a long way outside my comfort zone.” Tim twists his coffee mug in his hands.

“Tt. We left comfort zones behind a while ago. I think mine dissolved the first time your tongue came in contact with my anus.” And it’s testament to how comfortable Damian has got in this new ‘zone’ that he manages to say the whole sentence aloud, even though the blush lighting his cheeks is so hot Tim’s concerned he might get heatstroke. “We will be taking the risk together, ya amar.”

“I’m not frightened for _my_ sake. It’s the damage I could do to you.”

“Well, that is my fear also, so we will just have to guard each other against harm.” Damian takes the cold mug from Tim. “Another?”

Tim nods.

“Do you know what I imagined, while you were recovering from grandfather’s torture?” Damian called back from the kitchen. “I imagined taking care of you. I would build on the gifts I have already given you, feed you, watch you sleep. As long as you allowed me to, i would be your keeper, and you would be free from want.”

“Do as I ask, and I shall be your slave,” Tim quotes. Damian returns and hands him another steaming mug of coffee. “Labyrinth; it’s a film,” he explains at Damian’s questioning look. “I always thought Sarah was a fool not to take David Bowie up on the offer. In retrospect, how I persuaded myself I was straight for so long is frankly a mystery.”

“It appeals to you?”

The idea sends a decadent thrill through Tim. Being looked after is the greatest indulgence he can imagine asking for another person. Years of experience has taught him the only way to make people put up with him is to have as little impact on their life as possible.

The most hedonistic element of it all is that Damian knows this about Tim, but he’s not saying it to tempt him. He’s saying it because Damian needs to be in a partnership where he is permitted to smother his lover. He’s asking Tim’s permission to love him the only way Damian is capable, with his whole self at all times.

A lump forms in Tim’s throat, and all he can do is nod.

“When I think about us, together, it’s not the same as being brothers under the same roof, or colleagues in the same office,” Damian says. “Having you and not having you has been torture. I could not do for you the things I so desperately wanted to, or ask of you the things I so urgently needed. I think without those constraints, we have less to fear from each other.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I did that to you,” is all Tim can say. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I love you,” Tim says again. “This is going to be hard work, isn’t it? But the more I think about it the more I can see how we can make it work. Spending time together is going to bring things to the surface much quicker. For you, at least. I need to work on communicating. God, I need to do so much work. Privacy is my default.”

“Secrecy is your default.”

Tim tilts his head to one side. “That’s fair.”

“You are right. Things will come to a head more quickly when we live together. But… we know this about each other. We can work with this. I will make myself raise issues when they arise. You will make yourself respond to my concerns.”

“It’s going to be okay, isn’t it? We’re going to move forwards.” Tim feels giddy. “We’re going to move in together, and live together and be together, and we can make this work. We’re on this path together.”

He opens Damian’s letter to Bruce again, and reads it, just to feel the weight of Damian’s love behind the words a second time.

In the back of his mind he knows that this is just one step on that path, and they have a long way to go. He knows that some of the things they dug up during their fight were too big and ugly to be resolved in a single discussion, and he knows that they both have behaviours and baggage they need to work on to make sure they don’t fall back into bad habits again. They can’t just work on themselves, they have to work together. It might be a good idea to get professional help with that. He should catch up with Tam about Drake Industries EAP and health insurance options.

“Tim?”

“I need to start getting things organised,” he says. “The sooner Drake Industries gets off the ground the easier it will be to arrange everything.”

Damian nods. “You need to finish what you’ve started with DI, and you won’t be able to stay at the Tower indefinitely. You need to find an apartment as well as an office in the city. Pet friendly.”

Tim snorts. “I see you channelling me: you’re assigning me a task with a deadline. Putting me back inside my comfort zone.” He kisses Damian’s cheek. “When are the others due back?”

“At least two hours, by my reckoning.”

“What do you want to do until then?”

Damian blushes. His jaw works and he swallows. Tim is patient, letting his husband work up the nerve to ask for whatever it is he wants. The shyness reminds Tim of their wedding night.

“You said, a while back,” Damian begins, “you said, ‘I know’.”

“I know?”

“In the words of Hans someone.”

“Hans? Oh! You want to watch Star Wars?”

Damian nods, a short, jerky motion. “You said we would, together, and eat popcorn and m&ms.”

Tim feels the smile start from somewhere in his gut, a warmth that spreads all the way up his body until it reaches his face and tugs on his cheek muscles so hard it his face aches. 

“I love you, Damian Al Ghul Wayne Drake,” Tim says. “I hope you’re ready for a marathon. Theatrical, special, or ultimate editions?”


	37. Interlude: Birds of Prey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this from a work trip, so if there's any formatting issues etc I apologise, and I'll fix them by Friday.

It’s the third time Talia has seen someone in a cat mask watching her. At first she thought it was That Other Woman, but the person is smaller and slighter. Has she adopted a stray to soothe the wounds Talia’s Beloved left in her heart? Serves her right.

She’s managed to drive away most of the imposters in her Beloved’s life, but the first Robin is proving hard to shift. Her son insists on retaining some affection for him, which is frustrating. She wouldn’t mind so much if he’d bonded with the second Robin, over whom she has a hold, but it had to be the circus brat. She doesn’t want to win her beloved back at the expense of her son, so she’s loathe to kill Nightwing, but if she can’t find a way to separate him from her husband soon everything she’d worked for since learning of the marriage will go to waste. She needs to bind Bruce to her before her father acts.

Bruce is focused on Damian and Tim, but Nightwing has more ties beyond his immediate family. Put one of those in peril and his loyalties will be torn. Bruce will take his conflict as betrayal and cast him out.

She’s not willing to leave Gotham, and she doesn’t want to pick a fight with a meta, so that leaves Barbara Gordon.

Talia is working her way towards the Clocktower through the Diamond District when she catches sight of that cat mask again. There’s something familiar about it.

What would Cheshire be doing in Gotham right now?

And why would she let Talia _see_ her?

It’s too big a mystery to leave hanging. Gordon isn’t going anywhere in a hurry. All Talia has to do is disable the elevator and she’s a sitting duck.

Cheshire lives up to her name, a smile here, a footprint there, but never the whole cat. She leads Talia halfway across the city to the Upper East Side.

Talia stands on the roof of a residential apartment block, casting around for Cheshire’s next clue. Perhaps Cheshire’s mark lives in the building? Is it someone she wants Talia’s help with? No, not help. Someone she wants to gauge Talia’s reaction to.

“Hi!!”

It’s only her training that keeps Talia from jumping, a lifetime of knowing that uncontrolled physical reactions are the short path to a bloody death.

“Hey, it’s me, Batgirl.” The blonde woman rises from her crouch on the rooftop and waves cheerfully. “You’re the demon brat’s mom.”

“I know who you are. I thought you’d left the city,” Talia says. “Pursuing your ex-boyfriend.”

“We did,” another voice says from behind Talia. “We came back.”

Shiva’s daughter.

Talia’s blood runs cold.

She turns to see Black Bat, and behind her someone in Cheshire’s mask, but now she sees her prey clearly it’s obvious the girl is too young to be Cheshire. A white haired woman now stands to Batgirl’s left, a katana in her hand, and Huntress has taken up a position on the right.

Talia thought she was the predator, but she is the prey.

“What is this, a chapter meeting of daughters of assassins anonymous?” Talia snaps. “I don’t want to join your club.”

“My dad was more supervillain than assassin,” Batgirl says. “But DOA is an awesome acronym. I’m totally stealing that.”

“You’re not welcome in Gotham, Talia Al Ghul,” Huntress says,

Talia draws herself up to her full height, but she’s still several inches shorter than the older woman. Huntress must be in her mid forties now, or older, and doesn’t have Talia’s access to the Pit to ensure she remains at her peak, but she’s still formidable, and, more importantly, she’s not alone. Some of these women are known killers, some are not, and Talia isn’t sure which way the scales will tip tonight.

“I will leave when my Beloved asks me to, and not before.”

“You really think we’re here because of him?” Ravager laughs. “Robin is my _friend_. You don’t get to tear his life apart, waltz in here and play happy families in the tattered remains.”

“Same, but for Red too,” Batgirl says.

“You are not a fit mother,” Black Bat says. “You are not a fit partner. You do not belong in Gotham.”

“Bruce will never make you leave,” Huntress says. “But he’ll never ask you to stay, either. You’ve been playing this game for years, Talia. Don’t you have more pride than that? Aren’t you worth more than what he deigns to give you?”

“You’re one of the most dangerous people in the world,” the child in Cheshire’s mask pipes up. “You could be doing anything and you’re hanging out on rooftops waiting for a boy to call you.”

“I could be killing all of you,” Talia says.

“Threats aren’t a good idea right now,” Huntress says. “I’m not sure you understand the gravity of your situation.”

Talia hears the air whistle and ducks in time to avoid a batarang to her spine. Ravager charges her, sword raised. Talia feints, lunges, throws the other woman off balance so she drops to her knee. Huntress and the Cheshire Kitten both fire crossbow bolts, pushing Talia towards Ravager, and something hits her in the shoulder. 

It’s a sharp pain, and then a tearing pain, and then she’s flying backward across the rooftop.

It is possible the other women are on to something, she thinks, as she identifies the sensation as a grappling hook embedded in her flesh. Three clawed, tungsten-carbonate mix,with barbed tips, a steel cable judging by the tension in the line as it whips her over the edge of the roof. She dangles over the Gotham traffic forty stories below. Her life has involved too much dangling for a woman of her position and privilege.

“Let me guess,” she calls up to the women above her. “I must leave, or you’ll drop me.”

“Impossible choice,” Black Bat replies. “You cannot leave until we have released you, and we cannot drop you if you have left.”

The wind between the high rises is strong, and Talia swings back and forth. She reaches up and grabs the cable, pulling herself up to take some of her weight off the hooks. She can’t detach herself from the grapple without her feet on firmer ground, but she can reduce the damage it’s doing to her body so that she’s able to go another round with these women.

“We’re not him,” Huntress calls down. “We don’t share his code.”

“Two of you wear his symbol.”

“Yeah, but tonight? We’re birds, not bats.” Batgirl rappels down the face of the building to hang a short distance away from Talia. Foolish girl.

Talia throws her weight away from the building, letting the wind take her. She swings out and up, and then back, bearing down on Batgirl too fast for the other woman to react, blades out.

She’s millimetres from blondie’s cheek when the grapple jerks, Batgirl drops away below her as Talia’s hauled back to the rooftop. She releases the cable and lets herself hang from it, rising from the alley like a demon summoned from hell

As she reaches the lip of the roof she digs her feet into the brick and launches herself over the edge.

Cold metal hits her forehead.

“Awright.”

“Prudence.”

The bald assassin smirks at Talia from behind her gun.

“I’m here to take you somewhere you're actually wanted, Talia.”

“I thought you left the League.”

“Who said anything about the League?” Talia takes the grapple gun from Black Bat, holds it like a leash. She gives it an experimental tug and Talia digs her feet into the rooftop, refusing to flinch as the metal bites at her flesh. Prudence grins. “Heel, bitch.”

#

The Birds of Prey convene in the Clocktower.

“She was preparing to come for you,” Helena says. “I should have gone with them. Pru is good, but Talia is better. She’ll be free before the week is out.”

“They’ve already met up with Lynx,” Barbara says. “Talia Al Ghul is currently under arrest, courtesy of the Hong Kong police. I have no doubt it won’t last, but it should buy us some breathing space to smack some sense into Bruce.”

“We scared her.” Rose leans against the wall, unlit cigarette between her fingers. “That maneuver with the grapple worked perfectly; she had no idea we choreographed it.”

“She is used to being underestimated,” says Cass.

“She’s used to people who work alone.” Steph smirks. She and Cass are perched on the edge of Barbara’s console. Cass has a stack of pizza boxes, Steph a six pack of beer. “That’s what you get if you obsess about Bruce for decades.”

Steph passes the beers around. Barbara waves the offering away, barely a break in her typing as she does so, and the newest Bird finds herself holding a can. She pops the tab, and manages to get it most of the way to her mouth before Huntress reaches over and plucks it out of her hands. 

She’s still holding two beers when Black Canary lets herself in. She makes a beeline for the girl with a Cheshire cat mask pushed up onto her head, checks her over thoroughly before hugging her, and only when she’s completely satisfied that Lian is unscathed does she accept the beer.

“So, Lian, how was your first mission?” Dinah takes a swallow of beer and folds her arms across her chest. It’s obvious to the rest of the Birds she’s still tense.

Lian grins. “Good! Thank you guys so much for letting me help! Jay doesn’t talk much about his time with Talia, but he’s been really stressed. Like, he was mad at his dad for cancelling the Knights game, but he didn’t come here to yell at him, which is a sign he’s really upset.”

“Does he call Bruce his dad?” Steph raises an eyebrow.

“Huh? No. But he is, though. Jay said I could call Batman granddad, but I think that was mostly to make Grampa Ollie’s vein pop out.”

“Are you going to keep the mask?”

She shrugs. “I dunno. I mean, I’ve got a lot of options when it comes to identities. Cheshire, Robin, Speedy, Canary, Starfire… Chestarobinarypeedy?”

“Try saying that five times fast,” Steph says. “I bet Jay and Roy fight over which legacy you’ll pick.”

Lian grimaces. “They fight, sure, but they’re both complete hypocrites. Like is eighteen too young to be a superhero, or twenty one? Why not thirty? Dad used to be so much cooler about this stuff, but since I turned thirteen they’ve both got really weird about it, even though that was when they put on tights. Kori’s the only one who’s cool with me growing up.”

Dinah clears her throat.

“And Dinah, obviously,” Lian corrects hurriedly. “Grampa Ollie’s nearly as bad as my dads, though.”

“Little missions like this are a good place to start, working as part of a team.” Barbara spins her chair around. “Listening to you talk about firearms with Prudence before the briefing showed that you bring your own knowledge and skills to the table, and you obeyed my instructions perfectly in the field. I think I speak for all the Birds when I say we’d be happy for you to train with us.”

Steph shoves a piece of pizza into her mouth and talks around it. “A very wise person recently said, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘Bats are all hot messes, but Birds are hypercompetent goddesses of perfection’. Stick with us, baby. We’ll see you right.”

Lian considers this piece of wisdom. “What about Arrows?”

“They’re the messiest,” Dinah says dryly. “Trust me.”

“Cool. Cool. So, what’s our next mission?”

“Next, I take you home, and you send Hood back here,” says Dinah.

“And I have a little birdie on the West Coast to call,” Barbara adds. “Party’s over, ladies. Been lovely to see you all.”

“It’s always a riot.” Rose pushes away from the wall. “Can I get a ride to Star City? I still owe Mia dinner from that business with my dad.”

Dinah nods, and the three of them leave. Huntress heads off too, her home in walking distance, and Cass takes the roof exit.

Steph stays to tidy up the empty beer cans and finish off the last of the rapidly cooling pizza.

“She’s texting Superboy,” she says suddenly. “Since we got back from the Catskills they’ve been texting _a lot_.”

“I know.” Current and former Batgirl share an amused look. “What do you think?”

“I think she’s got him wrapped around her little finger already. It’s cute.” Steph picks a lump of cold mozzarella out of one of the greasy boxes. “You know, when you called us all here, I thought you might have news for us. Everyone in this family’s been keeping too many secrets lately.”

“And you thought there was something I wanted to get off my chest?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Barbara gives her a flat look.

“You and Dick sure have been hanging out a lot lately,” Stephanie says with an impish smile.

“We’re just friends. We’re just… feeling out the extent of that friendship. What the practical limitations are.”

“Like limited benefits?”

Barbara sighs. “Some benefits, but not the sort you’re thinking of.” She gestures to the console in front of her. “You know, it might be good to talk it through with a neutral third party.”

Steph squeals and throws herself in front of Barbara, shoving paperwork clear of the desk to fling her butt onto it, legs crossed, chin on her hands. “I am _all_ ears!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruce: I'm going to get rid of Talia. I'm definitely going to get rid of Talia. Any minute now, I'm going to tell Talia to leave. Any... minute...
> 
> Birds of Prey: Just so you know, Talia, you can do so much better.
> 
> Talia: Oh dear god, what am I doing with my life? I have to leave.
> 
> Bruce: ... any minute now...
> 
>  
> 
> I missed Rose, so I've decided she's joined the Birds at some point (probably on an awkward odd couple mission with Cass where they had to learn to get over their differences...). And I have no idea how old Lian ought to be - like Tim, her age got stuck for a while and she was three for a long time while other people aged around her (and then she was briefly dead, but that was appalling story-telling and we don't acknowledge it). Assuming Roy was over eighteen when she was conceived, she has to be several years younger than Damian, at least.


	38. In which finding somewhere to rent in San Francisco is hard, even for boy billionaires

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, originally, there was another interlude before this in which Batman essentially engineered the Titans going into space and the Bird chapter came after this, but it didn't really fit. You can assume he did so, but he's been deliberately kept away from San Francisco by the growing Team TimDami. The "inconsistent passage of time" tag is well deserved again - this chapter overlaps in timeframe with both the previous and the next one.

A mission take the Titans off planet for a couple of weeks. Bart loans them his spaceship, now he’s been reminded it exists. 

Tim stays behind to petsit, as much as anything else. It’s clear someone has called someone, because there’s a rota of friends “dropping by” the Tower to hang out and make sure he doesn’t start spiralling again. And it’s fun, at first, but eventually he has to put a stop to it because, actually, he does have work to do.

Okay, yes, Kon, he doesn’t have rent to worry about. He can spare a morning to check out some clues in Honolulu.

And, sure, Bart, he is a millionaire and if they lose a day to playing Tomb Raider 7, Tomb Harder, it’s not going to set him back too badly.

And, definitely, Cassie, of course he can spare an evening to helping her prep for her speech at the G8 opening dinner.

Okay, fine, Steph, one evening out on the town in San Francisco barely scratches the surface of what he owes her.

And Cass… Look, it’s not that he doesn’t want to come to Hong Kong, it’s really not. But he did promise Tam he’d get his shit together.

Yes, that Tam.

Yes, he hasn’t been a great boss to her. Or friend. Or ex-fake-fiance.

Yes, she has been really productive back in Gotham, hasn’t she?

Yes, she is broadly okay with him and Damian, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of launching Drake Industries.

No, he can go office scouting on his own, but thanks.

And somehow, he manages to clear a whole handful of days in his busy social schedule to actually get shit done.

#

He falls in love with the view first. San Francisco laid out before him, and Titans Tower always in his line of sight.

Tim’s been looking for office space all over the bay area, waiting for something to click, and it’s ridiculous that he finds it while driving back from Oakland one night along the I-80.

He pulls off the interstate on a whim and drives a complete loop of Treasure Island. It’s the complete opposite of Gotham. There’s open spaces and palm trees and the sea breeze. The oldest buildings are from the thirties, bright white art deco, while the new ones are prefab clapboard, laid out in military precision. The island has never hosted a single gargoyle. It’s new, artificial, bright. It’s not built on swamp and guilt and damnation like Gotham.

It’s an objectively terrible place to launch Drake Industries. There’s no hotels, hardly anywhere to wine and dine clients, a history full of negative associations, and radioactive top soil. There aren’t even any gas stations.

He returns the next day and signs a lease on office space in one of the fractured white blocks, a cube of a space with old carpet and fresh paint, noisy air conditioning and the previous tenant’s furniture.

It’s nothing like Gotham and it’s nothing like Wayne Enterprises and it’s nothing like he imagined. It’s his. And it’s perfect.

#

“You really think clients will want to come here?” Damian asks. 

They’re standing with the room’s sole desk between them. It’s a big fifties affair, dark wood, a million tiny drawers, and a leather inlay in the top, presumably abandoned because it’s significantly wider than the door. Everything else in the room looks cheap and shabby beside it, probably because it is all cheap and shabby. The pot plant in the corner is cobwebbed plastic, the desk chair is lawn furniture, and the blinds have jammed open.

“Most of our current clients are on the East Coast. This is about having a base I can reach out from, go out to the start ups our clients are interested in investing in. Really, it’s just somewhere to do paperwork so i don’t end up bringing it home.”

The office suite is made up of three rooms: the large private office they’re currently in, with a view over the bay, a reception room that shares the view and more lawn chairs, and a tiny private bathroom with an unshaded bulb that hisses and crackles.

Everything but the desk is going to a tip tomorrow, and then decorators are coming in the next day to give the whole suite a makeover. He wanted Damian to see it now, see it the way Tim saw it, before he makes it easier to love.

“You came up with that rationalisation after signing, didn’t you?”

Tim shrugs. “I had a hunch. If it doesn’t pay off, well, I’ll find somewhere else. Office space is cheaper here than Midtown or the Financial District.”

“What does Fox think? Have you told her yet?”

“She shares your skepticism.” Tim runs his tongue over his teeth. “Do you hate it?”

Damian cocks his head to one side. “I like the view,” he says.

“The window’s behind you.”

“I know.”

The only stuff on the desk is a copy of the lease and some empty SunDollar cups. Damian sweeps it clear with a single stroke, sending sheets of papers floating through the air like unseasonal snow.

Damian smirks at him. “That _is_ moderately entertaining.”

And oh, that gives Tim butterflies. Honest to god butterflies, like they’ve never done this before. It’s been a few weeks - their time at the Tower together had been carefully chaste - and the last time they were face to face, flesh to flesh, it was on top of a desk made in this century.

Damian’s smile falters.

Tim can’t stand the doubt creeping across his husband’s face. He moves without thinking, climbing onto the desk and leaning across to grab Damian’s shirt. He pulls Damian towards him, until their lips meet, and holds him there until they’re both breathless.

Damian breaks the kiss. Tim’s kneeling on the desk, hips lifted, feet tucked under his ankles for balance. Damian hooks his hands behind Tim’s knees and pulls them out from under him, so he drops to his butt with a thump. Damian’s hands are hot through the linen of Tim’s pants, his grip on Tim’s thighs reassuringly firm, and he tugs Tim until he’s barely perched on the edge of the desk, hips flush against Damian’s.

Tim crosses his ankles behind Damian’s back and pulls his lover’s face down for another kiss. He’s hungry for physical contact, puts both hands on Damian’s cheeks and runs his thumbs gently over Damian’s closed eyelids. Damian usually shuts his eyes when they kiss, but Tim likes to keep his eyes open. He likes to see the way Damian’s lashes fan over his cheeks, the way his nose scrunches and brow creases as he concentrates on the kiss, the way his skin flushes with desire.

Damian’s hands tighten on Tim’s legs, almost lifting him off the desk. Tim is grateful for every box split and stretch Dick forced him to do over the years as the burn from spreading his legs so wide is more pleasure than pain.

Damian’s lets go of one of Tim’s legs to slide his hand between them and press against his own cock.

“Okay?” Tim asks.

“These benighted skin tight jeans leave no room for growth,” Damian growls.

“Your ass does look incredible in them, though.” Tim nudges Damian’s hands away and pops the button of his flies. As he eases the zipper down Damian throws his head back and groans with relief. His cock is half hard, thick and heavy and hot through his silk boxers in Tim’s hand as he eases it free.

Tim swallows back the greedy saliva that gathers in his mouth. He pushes the elastic of Damian’s boxers down until it hooks under his balls, and pushes Damian back a little from the desk so he can fold himself in two and take Damian in his mouth.

Even flaccid Damian is more than an easy mouthful, and as his blood surges south he rapidly outstrips Tim’s ability to hold him comfortably. He’s hungry for Damian, though, starving for him. He suckles at the hardening flesh, smothering Damian in kisses and needy swallows. He buries his face in Damian’s crotch and inhales the scent of him. His throat works around Damian’s cock.

“Tim, oh Tim, ya amar, my Timothy.”

Damian’s hands find his hair and tangle in it. Tim expects him to set a rhythm but instead he eases Tim off his cock. Tim whimpers at the emptiness of his mouth like a child deprived of a pacifier.

“You’ll finish me before we can begin,” Damian says. He pulls Tim’s face up to his and kisses him, lips sliding against spit and precum. It’s an incongruously sweet kiss for all it’s sloppiness.

“I like making you pop like a shaken bottle of soda.” Tim pouts as he pulls back from the kiss. “We have all afternoon.”

Damian shivers, cock bouncing between his legs. Its nicely framed between his black skinny jeans and his burgundy polo shirt, still wet with Tim’s spit. Tim licks his lips.

Damian pulls Tim’s face into his chest and presses his nose into the crown of Tim’s head. He breathes Arabic into Tim’s hair.

“We need all afternoon,” Damian says, voice muffled by Tim’s bun, “but we don’t have it. I need to return to the Tower.”

“They won’t mind if you’re a little late.”

“They’ll speculate as to why.”

Tim tilts his head to peer up Damian’s chest at him. “It’s not a secret any more. So what if they speculate?”

“I don’t want them thinking about us like that.”

“Worried they’ll tease you?”

Damian goes still. Tim sits back on the desk, giving him space to process that thought.

“No,” Damian says eventually. “Which is to say, yes, they will, but it will be done with affection, and I will bear it. It’s not shameful, what we are doing.”

“No, it’s not.”

Damian swallows. “It’s Jon,” he says. “He won’t tease. He… I don’t want him speculating. I don’t want to give him cause to think of us _in flagrante_.”

“You can’t control Jon.” 

Tim pulls Damian back in flush to the desk so he can wrap all his limbs around him in the octopus-style hug they both associate with Dick. Damian smiles at the embrace, and wraps his arms around Tim. His cock is still hard between them, still leaking against Tim’s button-down, but the sense of urgency was waned.

“Damian?”

“I know.”

“I want to be careful of his feelings too. He’s a really sweet guy and I like him, and I don’t want to hurt him, but we’ve got to let him get on with his own life. If he’s jealous he’s jealous.”

“It’s not his envy I don’t want to dwell on.” Damian cups a hand under Tim’s chin and pulls him up for a kiss. “You are bold to tell me I can’t control others,” he says huskily.

“Yeah, I’m a hypocrite,” Tim acknowledges. “You love me for it.”

“I do.” Damian slides a hand between them and pushes Tim back, coaxing him down firmly but gently until his back is flat on the desk. His other hand reaches for Tim’s button fly and pops it open with a single deft movement.

Tim lifts his hips and Damian pull his trousers and briefs down to his ankles. Tim toes off his sneakers, which fall to the floor with a dull thump, and lets his trousers follow. It feels weird to be naked from the waist down, the polished wood of the desk cold against his butt, so he unbuttons the front of his shirt. Damian reaches down to pinch one of his nipples.

“You’re mine,” Damian says. “Only I see you like this. Only I touch you like this. These memories we make are for me to keep.”

“What do I get?” Tim asks, a little amused.

“You get to live in the moment for once. To stop thinking and just be.” Damian’s fingers trail down Tim’s body, nails catching on his scars. He runs his hand over the raised muscles of Tim’s abs, tickling along the dips and making Tim squirm. He tightens his stomach to make his abdominal muscles pop, arching his back and rolling his shoulder blades down to lengthen his torso and show himself off.

Damian chuckles. He bows over Tim, presses a kiss to his navel, and says, “You know your compact musculature is to my tastes.”

Tim throws back his head and laughs. 

It’s loud and sudden and he feels like he’s swallowed a lungful of sparkling sunshine from the dust-mote glittering air. Each ‘ha’ is a mouthful of gold, hot and sweet and bright. Damian keeps kissing his way down Tim’s torso and his dick twitches in anticipation of Damian’s mouth. He loves Damian’s mouth. There’s no other mouth like it. He loves fucking that mouth.

Damian’s mouth bypasses his straining cock. Tim hates that mouth. It’s a betrayer, a fraud.

He’s so focused on the cruel ways of Damian’s treacherous mouth he barely notices his hips being lifted from the desk, the way Damian slots his shoulders under Tim’s knees to take some of his weight, the way Damian’s breath stutters against his inner thighs.

And then Damian’s tongue darts out.

The hot, wet pressure against Tim’s anus is so brief his brain shorts out and he can’t comprehend what’s happening. Before he can reboot the sensation is back and he bucks in Damian’s grip.

“Oh Damian, baby bat.” Tim spreads his arms across the width of the desk and digs his shoulders in, lifting his hips higher to push against Damian’s face and crossing his ankles behind Damian’s head to pull him closer. Damian’s tongue is lean and strong, sliding easily into Tim’s hole and easing it open. He fucks Tim with his tongue, nose pressed to the underside of Tim’s balls, and Tim swears he can feel Damian’s smug smile against the crease of his buttocks. “You should be pleased with yourself, baby bat. Oh you should. You’re so good.”

Damian slides his tongue free of Tim’s grasping ring of muscles and runs it up his sack, tracing the crease, and sucks both of Tim’s balls into his mouth at once. Tim writhes, clawing at the desk.

Damian releases his testicles and lowers Tim fractionally. He laps at the leaking head of Tim’s cock, makes a show of enjoying the precum gathered there, and presses sweet kisses along the shaft. He shifts his grip on Tim’s hips, and as he swallows down Tim’s cock he slips a finger into Tim’s hole.

“Oh god, oh Damian, _I_ won’t last if you keep this up.”

Damian mumbles something around Tim’s cock and slides in another finger.

Tim is finally reduced to wordless moans. He can’t string two thoughts together, can’t remember how they got here, where here is, why they’re here. There’s just Damian. Damian’s fingers, Damian’s mouth.

Damian crooks his fingers inside him, and Tim comes down his throat.

Tim floats in the sunlight, all heat and light, aftershocks of his orgasm sending electric tingles under his skin. Damian lowers him to the desk.

“Ya amar,” Damian says.

“Vole,” Tim mumbles.

Damian kisses the inside of Tim’s knee.

“You are sated, my love,” he says softly. “I have missed seeing you so.”

Tim tries to prop himself up on his elbows, but his muscles are still quivering and he slumps back again.

“You didn’t mean to make me come,” Tim says. “You wanted… You want…” He looks along the length of his body and he can see Damian’s cock, rising over him. “You want to be in me.”

“N’am, habibi.” Damian sounds rueful. “But I would not ruin this picture.”

“Ruin me, baby bat,” Tim says. He’s wrung out and glowing, but he can still put a little of that steel in his voice which makes his lover’s dick twitch. “There’s lube in my bag.”

“And mine,” Damian says.

Tim rolls onto his front, the leather of the desk warm against his bare chest. He makes a note of the sensation to explore it again later. There’s a lot of fun to be had playing with textures. For now, though, it’s enough to turn his face sideways and press his cheek against the desk, and let himself relax in the sunlight.

“Ya amar?” Damian wraps a large hand over Tim’s right buttock. “Are you falling asleep?” He squeezes.

A little. “No.”

“Are you sure you want me to disturb your rest?”

“Is that what we’re calling it now, baby bat?” Tim smiles to himself. “Fuck me, Damian. Fill me up. Ruin me. Wreck me.” He tilts his hips up in invitation. “I promised Tam no more sex in the office, not once I’ve got employees, so this may be our only chance to do this.”

“One day,” Damian says, “we’ll have a conjugal bed.”

He slides a lubed finger into Tim, and finding him still relaxed from before, promptly adds a second. Tim’s still sensitive with the aftershocks of orgasm, and it doesn’t take long for Damian to wring a needy little noise out of him. He rocks up onto Damian’s fingers, burying his face in his folded arms and biting his lip. It’s just on the edge of overstimulation, and he’s not sure how he’s going to feel with Damian’s cock in him.

He whimpers as Damian adds a third finger. It's not entirely a happy noise. His cock twitches underneath him, but it’s too soon for him to get hard again.

Damian runs a soothing hand over Tim’s lower back. “Instruct me, ya amar.”

“Three is good for now,” Tim says.

Instead, Damian withdraws his hand.

Tim waits for a moment to see what is coming next, but nothing does. He rolls onto his side and looks back at his husband.

“Baby bat?”

“I… don’t want to,” Damian says. He’s frowning at the desk. “I’m sorry, ya amar. I’m sure it will pass. I will continue presently.”

“Not if you don’t want to,” Tim says, sitting up. He studies Damian’s face, looking for some clue as it what’s changed.

“I asked you for instruction, and I should follow it,” Damian says. He shakes himself and tears his eyes off the polished wood, but still doesn’t meet Tim’s gaze. “Return to your previous position.”

“No. What is it, Damian?”

Damian throws his shoulders back and angles his hips forward, going for a sexy cockiness, but his dick is wilting against his fly. He notices the focus of Tim’s attention, and all the bluster goes out of him at once.

Tim tugs Damian close by his belt loops, and tucks his cock back into his underpants. He zips Damian back up.

Damian perches on the edge of the desk next to him. He extends a long leg and hooks Tim’s pants up from the floor. Tim grabs them from the end of Damian’s shoe and pulls pants and underpants up together in one smooth movement born of years of quick changes in and out of costume.

He slips a hand into Damian’s.

Damian rests his head on Tim’s shoulder.

“Is it okay that we stopped?” he asks. “I know you always say it is, but you didn’t-” he breaks off and swallows. “I couldn’t tell if you wanted to keep going or not.”

“Of course it’s okay.” He squeezes Damian’s hand. “It’s always okay.” He feels sick at the thought Damian harboured a single doubt on that matter. “Please, Damian, always tell me. Always.”

“And you? Will you always tell me?”

Which, okay, is a question with more grey in it than Tim had realised, because Damian isn’t wrong about his earlier ambivalence. He was sated and comfortable, and he had known that Damian’s cock inside him would have made him less comfortable, but not so much so he wasn’t willing. He wanted to make Damian happy; it would have made him happy, and he trusts Damian enough to know that he would have enjoyed himself.

So it hadn’t been enthusiastic consent, but it had been willing, and maybe there’d been a thread of guilt for not being more enthusiastic after weeks apart that made him want to push past the discomfort for the intimacy of it all. Can he tell Damian that? It would hurt Damian emotionally, just as the idea of Damian doing the same hurts him. He feels like it runs counter to everything he wants to instil in Damian about sex, but if he doesn’t tell Damian it’s against everything they’ve promised each other about communication.

“I will,” Tim says. “I promise. I… I wish I hadn’t come so quickly. I wanted you to fuck me over the desk, I really did, like we talked about back at Wayne Enterprises. I just… after I came it wasn’t urgent, but I wanted you, but maybe I should have taken a minute. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry so much you wanted to stop.”

Something flickers across Damian’s face, too fast for Tim to read, and he fears the worst.

“Why did you tell me to fuck you?”

“Because I wanted you to fuck me.”

That, at least, is simple.

“I am glad to hear it,” Damian says. “I want to fuck you. But then I began thinking about a conjugal bed, our marital bed, and I did not want to fuck you here, like this.” He gestures at the shabby office, and Tim swallows back a fresh wave of guilt. Damian deserves so much better than cobwebs and mystery stains and broken blinds.

“We haven’t had a bed since Turkey.”

“ _That_ is how I want to fuck you, on and under sheets, with pillows and a place to rest. I want the time to explore you again, to test our limits together, to relearn each other’s bodies. I don’t want to make you come before I mean you too, and when you are sated, I want to rest beside you in the knowledge that we have all the time in the world to reconvene.”

“We both have beds at the Tower.”

Damian scowls. “Beds. Plural.”

“I’ve tried finding somewhere to rent, Damian. It’s the Bay Area; property here is insane. It’s not like Gotham with all it’s abandoned warehouses and derelict theatres going for less than the land’s worth. And somewhere pet friendly, with roof access, in an easy commute of Berkeley and the Tower, with enough storage space for out costumes... “

“You found an office to lease.”

“More by luck than skill. I’ll find somewhere for us to live, Damian. Somewhere we can put a king size bed with a canopy, and hang your paintings and my photos, with-”

“Ya amar, you are looking for somewhere perfect.” There’s fondness in Damian’s voice, but also frustration. “We can make anywhere you find perfect.”

“You deserve the best, baby bat.”

“I deserve you.” Damian kisses Tim’s cheek. “And we deserve a home.”

Tim’s been living in places he’s thought of as temporary, as stop gaps, as safe houses, for so long now the thought of a real home takes him back to his childhood. Even Wayne Manor was somewhere he had a room, rather than a home, though not for lack of trying on the part of Bruce and Alfred. He’d been made wary already, though, watching his childhood home sold to pay his father’s hospital bills, and then again, later, evicted from Jack and Dana’s place because he was too young to lease it alone. Home was somewhere that could be taken away from you, a way to pour salt in the wound of a parent’s death twice over. Better not to get too attached. Better to invest emotion in the things you could take with you. Store your life in the cloud so you can access it from anywhere, keep enough fluid assets to buy anything you have to leave behind at short notice, brand everything until it all belongs to a concept rather than you.

“You are my home,” Tim says. “Wherever you are, I’m home.”

Damian squeezes his hand.

#

Tim’s overseeing the installation of a new suite in the office bathroom when his work phone pings. So far he’s only given the number to Tam and the contractors (he offered it to Damian, who refused on the basis that it was only a matter of time before they breached Drake Industries acceptable use policy, as drawn up by Tam) so when he sees it’s an unknown number his first instinct is to reject the call and phone his provider to yell at them for giving out his new number to spammers already. As his thumb hovers over the red symbol, the screen flickers and a familiar green mask appears.

Tim puts the phone to his ear as he backs away from the plumbers. “Drake Industries, Tim Drake speaking.” He dives into his office. The smell of paint is so strong it almost makes him gag. The carpet and curtains are absent, and there’s masking tape around the windows and door. The desk is still there, and with nowhere else to sit Tim climbs on top and crosses his legs.

“O,” he says.

“Hello, Tim Drake of Drake Industries.” Her voice is modulated, but not so strongly that it would draw attention to the fake should anyone overhear. “How are you, stranger?”

“Good, I’m good. Got an office, getting it redecorated. How are things on your end?”

“They’ve been… interesting. With the potential to get more so.”

“Because of the demerger? And general…” Tim gestures, not entirely sure if she can see him or not.

“No. More the opposite. You’re not the only one with a complicated personal life, little red. But I’m not calling to talk about me.”

Tim remembers a few months ago, when he was convinced Dick and Barbara were back together. He’s been too distracted to monitor the situation like he normally would, and a pang of regret strikes him.

“Is it Dick? How is he? I don’t like how I left things with him.”

“He doesn’t like it either, but also no. How’s house hunting going?”

“House hunting? Uh.” He and Damian have arranged five viewings and managed to make it to two of them, but even Damian had to admit there was a difference between imperfect and impossible. “Could be better.”

“Nowhere has a doggie door?”

“Nowhere had a dark knight door,” Tim says, keeping his vice pitched low. “Or, in one case, any door! The listing was for a two bed with a half bath, but it was basically a master bedroom with en suite and walk in closet, with the door to the rest of the apartment boarded over and access via the fire escape.”

“What if I told you there’s a basement apartment with a private entrance, off street parking, multiple bedrooms, and its very own giant penny.”

Tim blinks. “Oh. Oh my god. I thought that was a myth.”

“No, just mothballed for a while.”

“Is the entrance really through a - a _fetish_ shop?”

“Premium leather goods for the distinguishing adult enthusiast. There’s also a subterranean exit big enough for a motorbike or great dane in need of walking.”

“What about a civilian address? I can’t give the store’s name out in connection with Drake Industries.”

“You’re celebrities, you shouldn’t be giving out any addresses. Get a PO Box.”

“Won’t B object? He’s not happy about any of this.”

“You have until he figures it out to bring him around.” The connection crackles briefly. “Honestly, Tim, the two of you have managed to go about this in the most dramatic way possible, but it _will_ blow over. Something else will come along before you know it to distract the family. You just need to keep the in-laws at bay until it does, and your current accommodation is - how shall I put this? - a giant target with a capital T.”

“My mother-in-law has left Gotham?”

“She has.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. Thank you for this, O. Really, thank you. It means a lot just to hear from you right now.”

“Find me some goodies in all those tech start-ups out there, and you can consider yourself properly forgiven. Until then, keep yourselves safe.”

“You are going to get the best toys this Christmas, I swear.”

“I better.”

The line goes dead.

Batcave West. He’d heard rumours about it - Batman Inc had used it briefly a few years back, and before that it had been an Outsiders base - but really, he’d thought it was a joke, a line in a field report meant to check if they were paying attention to the minutiae.

Whether they can make a home of it remains to be seen, but at the very least, they have a house. Well, an apartment. A base.

A place.

Their own place.

Tim and Damian’s place.

He tries it out in his head. _Where are you going? Oh, Tim and Damian’s place._ It works.

A place underneath a store full of leather chaps and full face masks. 

Well, if that isn’t homely, what is?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was searching the DC wiki for any superheroes who had a base in SF so I could steal their hideout, and what do I come across but Batcave West (also, there's a fictional university in SF that Supergirl attended, which would have been so much easier than trying to use a real one), which, frankly, is so much better than anything I could have made up. It's under a fetish shop! Staffed by people who genuinely thought Batman was just a customer! It makes a brief appearance in Batman Inc, but I think the story got cut off by on of many reboots, so it's a bit up in the air what happened to it.
> 
> http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Batcave_West


	39. Interlude: The prodigal son returns

_Dear Jason_

_We have always had the wrong things in common to form a true bond. I find it much harder to imagine what you make of recent events compared with other family members. I was too young to really understand what the dynamic between my mother and yourself was; I know it was not a positive experience for you. I cannot make an apology for any pain she caused you, because I can neither repair the damage nor promise she will not repeat her actions, but I do not support her, and I cannot tolerate the wounds she is inflicting on our family now._

_I think perhaps I have not always made things clear between us, where I stand on such matters. I choose you over her, Jason. I love her, she is my mother, but where any choice exists I will always choose you and our family._

_Tim will always make the same choice, as well. Father and Richard don’t understand, they think that it’s possible we might have chosen grandfather. I need you to come back and help the others understand._

_Please, if this letter reaches you at all, make them understand that Ra’s and mother are not a choice either of us could countenance._

_Yours in hope_

_Damian_

#

Starfire lands on the roof of the manor, completely unembarrassed by the attention she might attract. Bruce supposes the media might still recall the time she was Dick’s fiance, but generally, having an alien land of the roof carrying his supposedly dead son is an excellent example of why he doesn’t like metas in Gotham.

Dick goes up to the roof to greet her. There’s no audio on the feed, but she’s very clearly annoyed. Her hair flames behind her as she upbraids her former lover. Bruce can guess the topic.

As he watches she winds down quickly, finishing with a single emphatic gesture. She puts a hand in the small of Jason’s back and pulls him flush against her mostly bare body. He tangles his hands in her hair and kisses her thoroughly and passionately. She pulls back with a fond smile.

Dick says something - Bruce guesses a reference to their former relationship status - that makes Jason scowl and Kori smirk. She steps over and presses a quick kiss to his lips. He freezes, rooted to the spot, as she smiles at both of them before launching herself into the sky.

Jason brushes past Dick and heads down into the manor.

Bruce sits at the Batcomputer. It takes Jason three minutes and forty seven seconds to reach him, which suggests he’s taken a significant detour on his way to the cave. Dick follows him down the stairs several seconds later.

“The fuck is going on?” Jason snarls. “When was the last time you did the fucking washing up?”

That was not the tack Bruce was expecting him to start on. His preparation has been in vain.

“Alfred’s on strike,” Dick supplies.

“He shouldn’t be on strike, he should be fucking retired,” Jason snaps. “And you two should learn to lift a fucking finger. What’s the maid service Damian got for Tim? Call them.” He folds his arms. “I mean it, Bruce. Call them now. It’s fucking disgusting that without a septuagenarian tidying up after you there’s mould growing in the fucking sink.”

He waits.

“After we’ve talked,” Bruce says.

“Now.”

“The washing up isn’t the priority.”

“It is now. Just because you own enough crockery to go without washing it for a month doesn’t mean you should.”

“You’re not angry about the fine china.”

“Of course I’m not angry about the fucking china! I want to smash every damn dish of it! But you can _fix_ that.”

Jason’s words hit Bruce square in the chest. He can fix dirty dishes. He can’t fix what Jason is angry about.

“For fuck’s sake, Bruce. I’ve seen you pull some truly self-destructive shit over the years when you’ve convinced yourself you don’t deserve a family, but trying to give us all dysentery is a new one on me. Alfred isn’t punishing you by going on strike. You’re punishing yourself by refusing to function on the most basic adult level. _You_ are where Tim gets this, you know that?”

For lack of any cogent argument, Bruce pushes his cowl back to stare at his second son.

“Fix this, Bruce.”

Part of him rebels at being ordered around by his son like this, but it serves as more salt in the self-inflicted wound his poor parenting has brought about.

He needs to move the conversation on, so he compromises. He brings up Tim’s computer science class app on his phone, and orders a team to deep clean the manor.

He feels oddly lighter, after, as though he’s taken an actual, tangible step towards dealing with the real problem. It’s ridiculous, of course. He has enough china to last two more weeks, and he could always buy more. Perhaps living in squalor isn’t a pleasant experience, but he’s had other priorities.

He could offer it up as an apology to Alfred. Partial apology. The beginning of an apology.

“See, Jay, he’s done it.” Dick shifts so he’s behind Bruce, which is irritating. They’re boxing him in. Bruce pushes his hair back against the Batcomputer so he can keep an eye on both of them at once. “Can you get to your real point now?”

“You think that’s not my point? You really think I care what the Pretender and the Brat get up to in their spare time?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t, Jay,” Dick says.

“No, you know who I care about? I care about Lian, who Bruce promised to take to a Knights game. He’s blown her off three times because you’ve both got fucking tunnel vision over this. You always do this, get bogged down in a case and stop seeing what’s going on around you.”

Bruce is beginning to wonder if he’s even part of the conversation his sons are having over his head. Dick is taking his guilt out on Jay, and Jay is retrenching, defending the bits of his territory that Dick has no claim over. They could be eighteen and thirteen again, Dick burning with fury over being fired and directing it outwards, Jason terrified the older boy is going to take away everything he’s just worked up the nerve to claim as his own.

“Talia was in the city. It wasn’t safe. _You_ were staying away.”

“One, that didn’t stop Lian from coming herself - which, trust me, if I’d known about I’d have prevented because you’re not wrong about Talia - and two, you’re saying that _now_. Did you even know what Bruce promised? You missed her _birthday_ , Bruce.”

And suddenly he’s part of the fight again.

Jay’s hurt.

This isn’t about Tim and Damian or Ra’s and Talia.

He’s hurt his son.

He’s hurt his granddaughter.

“I’m sorry.” He finds his voice for the first time.

“You better fucking be.” Jay still has his arms folded, so tightly his leather jacket’s seams are straining over his shoulders. He looks like the little boy Bruce met in an alley, arms wrapped around himself for warmth. “She’s a resilient kid, Bruce, but I’d rather she save that for when Kori has to disappear into space for weeks, or her dad gets wounded in the line of fire, or the counsellor at school asks too many questions.”

Jason looks like that little boy, but he’s not. He’s a father himself now. And, Bruce realises with a start, he’s a good one.

“She’s that age, you know, when you think people can be fixed.” Bruce can hear the concern in his voice, but also the pride. Lian wants to make the world a better place, and Jason wants the world to be better for her. “She came to Gotham. She chased Talia down. She did that because she thought it would fix things.”

“She what?” Dick speaks for both of them.

“She hooked up with the Birds and went after Talia. What, you didn’t wonder where the bitch went?”

“Oracle told me she took care of it," Bruce says.

“She was gunning for Barbara, you know that? She wanted to lure you away.” Jason is still addressing Dick.

Dick straightens up so sharply that his spine audibly pops. “Is she-”

“She’s fine.” Jay flicks his fingers dismissively. “Like Barbara couldn’t turn that woman upside down and inside out with both wheels tied behind her back.”

“It’s not- I know that.” Dick scowls. “But she’s…”

“She’s what? Needs a big strong Nightwing to look after her?”

“She really, really doesn’t.” Dick deflates. “Can we leave her out of this?”

The moment stretches like melted sugar, hanging in the air, and then it suddenly sags into spun gold.

“Sure,” Jay says. “She knows better than to let herself get dragged down in Bruce’s bullshit, anyway, so we shouldn’t do it for her.”

“Yeah.”

Jay holds Dick’s gaze a couple of seconds longer, and it’s clear there’s more to be said on the subject of Barbara, but not now. Not while they’ve got Bruce to gang up on.

“Bruce, do you still seriously think Tim is working for Ra’s?” Dick asks him.

Bruce pulls up Drake Industries’ bank account. There are several large deposits coming from overseas accounts.

“Ra’s has already made several investments through DI,” Bruce says. “There are multiple periods of time where Tim has gone dark and I have been unable to trace Ra’s movements. Tim made reference to Ra’s in his interview with Lane, and there’s also correspondence from Ra’s to Tim.”

“Any replies?”

“None that I’ve found.” It’s a small relief, but Tim is second only to Oracle when it comes to hiding his tracks online.

“So Ra’s is just being a creepy old bastard, like usual.” Dick frowns at the screen over Bruce’s shoulder.

“Oh for- He’s like a fucking toddler, Bruce. He knows you’re watching. Stop paying attention to him and he’ll learn to self fucking soothe.” Jason throws his hands up.

“I have considered that possibility,” Bruce says stiffly. “It’s too risky. You don’t leave a child throwing a tantrum next to a knife block.”

“I told you, tunnel vision. Do you even know what else you’ve been missing while this is going on?” Jason darts a glance at Dick, but returns his attention to Bruce. “Because life keeps going without you. You’re Sherlock Holmes, Bruce: you can identify where a man has walked from by the soil in the tread of his shoes, but you don’t know the earth goes around the sun. If it’s not relevant to the mission you ignore it, and when you can’t ignore it you assume it’s got to be something to do with the mission.

“Anyone who watched those two pull each other’s pigtails could have told you this was gonna happen sooner or later. Ra’s didn’t need to get involved. Even if none of us had ever donned the tights, if there was no mission, if they’d just been boys next door the chemistry would have got them in the end.”

“The press,” Dick says softly, “they’re not surprised, are they? Vicki Vale saw this coming.”

“Vale sees too much,” Bruce growls.

“She sees what’s right in front of her nose, you mean.” Jason scoffs.

“It’s a different set of investigative instincts to solving a crime, isn’t it?” Dick smiles, catching his bottom lip between his teeth to stop it from getting too broad. "Lois didn’t solve the mystery of Superman’s secret identity; she followed the clues of Clark Kent behaving strangely.”

“Why are you sulking around here too?” Jason challenges his brother, taking him by surprise. “Jealous?”

“Jealous?” Dick blinks at him.

“They both adored you, but now you’ve been cut out of the equation.”

Bruce has had his suspicions that envy might play a role in Dick’s reaction as well, but he hasn’t raised it with his eldest son for fear of driving him away. He’s very curious to see how he reacts to the accusation coming from Jason’s lips.

“That’s not- I don’t-” Dick splutters. “You think I want to be here? I’ve got my own shit to deal with too, you know.”

“Yeah, I do know, which is why I’m asking.”

“I couldn’t leave B in Talia’s clutches!”

“Are you mad they’re married and you’re still single?”

“A little, yes! And I’m mad you and Roy became Kori’s concubines without telling me either!”

“Concubines?” Bruce keeps his jaw clenched to stop it from dropping open.

Jason goes stiff, hands balled into fists. “We’re not concubines,” he hisses. “It’s _complicated_. She’s a princess.”

“I know that! And I know _you know_ it’s a big deal, whatever you call it! You three made a commitment and you’re raising a kid, and Tim and Damian are married and I might as well still be in the short pants for all I’ve done with my life so far and I’m jealous but I’m also terrified, Jay, because everything is changing and my life is going to change and maybe I want to go back to back flipping off lamp posts and following Bruce.” Dick draws a shuddering breath. “I really need this family not to be falling apart right now, and I’m trying my hardest to hold it together, so you don’t get to swan in here after Talia’s been chased off and act like I’m the one who isn’t pulling his weight, okay?”

“Well, tag,” Jason says.

“Tag?”

“Yeah, tag. You’re out, I’m in.”

“You can’t- don’t-” Dick wrings his hands. “You don’t get to swan in here!”

“I’m not swanning in,” Jason says. “I’m subbing in. I’ll hold the fort here and keep smacking sense into this idiot, you get your ass over to San Francisco and start working on those idiots.”

Dick stares at him.

“You’re serious? You’re going to stay here?”

Jason takes a deep breath. “If that’s… If that’s the best way to handle this, yes.”

It kills Bruce that Jason is struggling with the decision. His son. His boy. Doesn’t want to be here, but he’ll stay. He’ll stay for Bruce’s sake.

His pride make a last ditch attempt to object to this treatment, but Bruce swallows it back down. He’s made a lot of mistakes in his life, but his boys care enough to stick around when he’s at his lowest point.

He’s tired. He’s tired of himself. He’s been in this place for so long, and it’s so dark and lonely and exhausting. He’s treading water in the bottom of a well, and every time someone offers him a rope to pull himself out he refuses for fear of pulling them in with him. But he trained these boys, and he has to trust that they wouldn’t be offering him the rope if they hadn’t already secured it properly.

“We can clear up,” Bruce finds himself saying. "Tidy, so it's easier for the cleaners." If tidying up will make Jason look less like he’s sucking on a lemon at the prospect of spending time with his old man, Bruce will do that. Like Jason said, it’s something he can fix. Everything else is complicated and delicate and raw, but loading the dishwasher has a clear start and end point and achievable goals.

“Hear that?” Jason says, voice distant. “What fun we’ll have!”

Dick snorts. “I’ll stick around for a few days,” he says. “I’ve got my fair share of cleaning to do.” He rubs the back of his neck. “If I start on the dishes, will you show me that chicken and rice dish?”

“The casserole? Sure.”

Jason kicks Bruce’s chair. Bruce lifts his feet and lets it spin for a second before standing up.

Dick leads the way upstairs. Bruce unclips his cape and leaves it and the cowl on the chair in front of the Batcomputer.

“So, Jay-lad,” he says, trying to keep the tentativeness from his voice.

“We’re not her concubines,” Jay says firmly. “Or her harem, or anything else Dick tries to tell you. It was just some paperwork in case something happened while we were in space to make sure any survivors would make it back okay. It’s like Roy naming me and Kori Lian’s guardians. Just a formality, not… Whatever Dick thinks it is.”

“It’s good to have the formalities down on paper, just in case,” Bruce says. “I was going to ask how your classes are going.”

“Oh, that. Well, it’s summer break right now, but next semester we’re doing the Harlem Renaissance. I’ve been reading Passing. You know it?”

“I read it in high school. I don’t remember it very well, though.”


	40. In which Batcave West needs a really deep clean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm messing about a bit with the posting schedule now, since there's more interludes coming up. I don't think I'm going to finish posting this before Christmas. I only hope I finish writing it, because I won't get a chance during the holiday (there's nothing a thirty-something woman wants to do more than explain to her in-laws she's writing Batman porn...) and I'm a bit worried it might end missing it's final few chapters.

There’s an email in Tim’s Drake Industries inbox he doesn’t want to deal with. He wishes the spam filter had caught it, but he has to admit it’s not spam.

 _My dearest son-in-law_  
   News travels slowly in my part of the world, so i have only recently come across the article Ms Lane penned about the founding of Drake Industries. I would like to congratulate you on breaking free of your parent company and striking out in your own direction. My heart was warmed to think you were inspired to do so by our conversations.  
   I know your independence is important to you and I would not dream of interfering in your work, but if you are looking for potential investment opportunities there is a young woman in Afghanistan who has been working on applications for wireless electricity in agricultural irrigation who I am happy to put you in touch with. Her father is one of my employees, so the line of communication remains open.  
   However, before I overinvest in your new venture, I am concerned that our ties are merely formal, and not legal. I have seen no sign that you are preparing to make my grandson an honest man. As a reminder of how seriously I take marital vows, I have released Freeze from Arkham.  
   I look forward to hearing of your new ventures, and I have no doubt that Drake Industries will become a leading organisation in its field. I await my invitation to your wedding with breathless anticipation (which is also how the citizens of Gotham will feel when Freeze releases his new Glycerol vapour).  
   Sincerely yours  
   Ra’s Al Ghul

The man writes emails like formal correspondence, which annoys Tim far more than it ought because he’s pretty certain Ra’s is just doing it to make a point.

He forwards it to Oracle to make sure Batman gets the warning about Freeze (there’s no point trying to relay the information himself, not with the source being who it is) and googles Gotham City Art Gallery. It takes a bit of hunting, but eventually he finds their events page. Splashed across the top of it is a banner reading “Now taking bookings for 2025! If you want to be added to our waiting list for an earlier date, please see below”.

_My not-at-all-dear Ra’s_

_Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude to ask for an invitation to someone’s wedding? It’s up there with wearing white, just so you know._

_I haven’t forgotten your threats, and your meddling is only going to make it harder to bring Bruce around. We’re not doing this without him, so whatever plan you’ve got to isolate us from him and force us to cosy up to you can go hang._

_As you can see from this link [www.gothamcityartgallery.gov/events] there’s no point you rushing us, because everywhere is fully booked for some time to come._

_Please don’t get involved with Drake Industries. We don’t want or need you and you poison everything you touch. We don’t need your leads, or your money (yes, I did notice the transfers, and I blocked them) or your ‘inspiration’. You didn’t inspire me, your ridiculous scheme forced me to do it._

_Not yours in any respect, especially sincerely_  
Timothy Drake  
CEO

He tries to return to work, but it’s hard to concentrate now. He shouldn’t have fired off a reply so quickly. It won’t take long for Ra’s to call him out on the venue, and the sign off that had sounded witty when he was boiling with fury reads as distinctly immature.

He fires off an email to the event coordinator at the Art Gallery to be added to the waiting list, so if Ra’s challenges him he can truthfully say he’s done so. He checks another couple of possible venues and is relieved to see the waiting lists are equally long.

The idea dogs him, and he finds his mind drifting repeatedly for the rest of the work day, until he’s back at Batcave West, Damian beside him. Suddenly sparkling crystal champagne glasses and glittering tablewear seem like a distant dream.

“We have to clean it ourselves,” Damian says, wrinkling his nose.

“No Alfred here,” Tim says.

There’s the better part of a decade’s worth of dust built up, cobwebs big as bedsheets in the corners, miscellaneous grime coating the floor. The beds are damp, the bulbs are blown, the showers and toilets stained dubious colours by limescale and rust.

“Where do we start?” Tim asks helplessly.

Damian consults his phone. “We start high and work down,” he says. “The floor has drains in, so we can just hose it down once all the other dirt is at ground level.”

Tim has a vision of waltzing his husband around a black marble floor. They’re leaving footprints in the grime here.

“We work for two hours,” Tim says, “then we get pizza and go back to the Tower to watch the the Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”

“Four hours, pizza and ice cream, [we listen to Jerry Goldsmith’s Christus Apollo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christus_Apollo).”

“Three, pizza and frozen yoghurt, an episode of the original series.”

“Tt.”

“And the cantata.”

“Deal.”

Two hours and forty five minutes later the light fittings are mostly clean. Damian puts Christus Apollo on his ipod and gives Tim one of his airpods to listen to it as they trudge through the fetish shop. The walk back to the Tower shuttle takes forever and no time at all, and they’re on the hovercraft before Tim realises they didn’t pick up anything to eat.

“Are you hungry, baby bat?” he asks.

“Too tired to be hungry.”

Damian is leaning against Tim, eyes closed. The music ended some time ago, but he hasn’t made any move to start another track. Tim presses a kiss to the crown of his head, and purses his lips at the burnt dust that clings to them. He dreads to think what sort of grease a fetish shop has been generating to make those light fittings so sticky.

“Same,” Tim says.

That wakes Damian up a little. “You are not going to bed hungry,” he grumbles, opening his eyes. He blinks a couple of times and rubs his eyes, peering at the grit he dislodges from them. “After we both shower.”

Tim nods.

It ought to be sexy showering with his husband. The showers at the Tower are communal, a white box of a room full of showerheads, but the water pressure is stronger than any gym’s has even been and the heads are full adjustable to account for all shapes and sizes of Titans.

The water drains away grey, and though the heat of it beats the worst of the knots from Tim’s shoulders exhaustion sits deeper in his muscles. It’s ridiculous - he used to train all day and patrol all night only a few years ago without feeling half so tired - but he appreciates Alfred’s toil all the more. It’s the emotions tied up in it all, the fact they’re making a space for themselves, but the fact it’s a place Bruce has long since abandoned… It’s not what Tim _wants_ for them. All the cleaning in the world won't wash Bruce out of it.

Damian steps under Tim’s showerhead and Tim rouses himself enough to tilt his head up for a kiss under the running water. He leans in to his husband’s chest, feels the warmth emanating from him even under the hot water. There’s a shock of cold on Tim’s scalp, and Damian's fingers start massaging it, working the shampoo into his hair. Tim moans under Damian’s firm touch and presses his forehead against Damian’s shoulder.

Damian shifts to angle them under the shower and rinse the suds out. His arms come up around Tim and hold him against his slippery skin. It’s warm and sweet and intimate, and Tim could fall asleep right here, standing up.

“Ya amar,” Damian says, lips brushes the shell of Tim’s ear. “I have heard tell of your uncanny ability to fall asleep anywhere, but we have beds here.”

“Bed,” Tim murmurs. “Can I sleep in yours tonight?”

“We won’t fit,” Damian says. “You know that.”

“I’m small,” Tim objects.

Damian tugs him out from under the spray and turns the shower off. He wraps a towel around Tim’s waist and another around his shoulders to catch the run off from his hair. He steers Tim out of the showers and up to the kitchen, despite the fact they’re both clad only in towels, and pushes him onto a stool at the breakfast bar. Tim sits and drips obediently.

Damian searches the cupboards for something to eat, and eventually comes up with enough eggs for a plain omelette.

There’s an awkward cough and they both look over to see Jon in the doorway.

“Hi?”

“Hello.”

Tim manages a nod. He really just wants to go to sleep.

“You guys are back?”

“Yes. There is several days worth of work needed to prepare the cave,” Damian says, addling the eggs with a spatula. “Is there any cheese?”

“Cheese?”

“Yes, Jon. Cheese.”

“No?

“Well, I suppose you aren’t meant to eat it before bed, though I am sure that’s merely old wives’ tales.”

Jon takes a few steps into the kitchen and stops again.

“I’m not interrupting?”

“Stop phrasing everything as a question,” Damian snaps. “I am tired, Jon. If you want something, tell me.”

Jon blinks at him. “Are there any chips left?”

Damian nods towards Tim as he dishes up the omelette onto a single plate. Tim blinks. He hasn’t got any chips.

Jon walks slowly towards him. He’s got both hands in his pockets and he’s slouching a little, which isn’t like him. Tim opens his mouth to explain he hasn’t got any chips when Jon steps past and opens the cupboard behind him.

Oh, right.

“Mind your head?” Jon says. “Um. Mind your head. Tim.”

“Thnx,” Tim mumbles. Damian cuts the omelette into quarters and puts the plate on the bar between them. He holds out a fork, and when Tim just stares at it places it into his hand.

“I’ve got my- I’ve got my chips. I’m going back to my room. Goodnight!”

“Night,” Tim says, waving at him with the fork, but Jon’s already gone, literally flying out of the room.

“Eat, ya amar,” he says.

Oh right, that.

He eats his share of the omelette mechanically, grateful that it’s bland and uniform in texture.

When the plate is empty Damian puts it into the washing machine and leads Tim upstairs. They stop outside of Tim’s room.

“You coming in?” Tim asks, leaning against the doorframe and making an attempt to leer at Damian. It falls flat, though, and he drops the look. “Baby bat?”

Damian sighs. “I can’t. It… wouldn’t be kind.”

“Tomorrow,” Tim says, “we forget about the main room and just focus on the bedroom. I’ll order a new bed. King size. Brand new sheets. Goosedown pillows.”

“Ah yes, and have it all delivered to our upstairs neighbours?”

“I could order most of it from them. How do you feel about black silk and leather?”

“A familiar aesthetic, I suppose,” Damian says. “We will stick to the current plan. It’s all well and good preparing a perfect bedroom, but I am not moving into that cave until we also have clean and hygienic places for cooking and washing.”

“The rest room was grim, wasn’t it?” Tim sighs. “Fine. Are you sure we can’t share here, though?”

Damian leans in and presses a closed-mouth kiss to Tim’s lips. It’s a kiss goodnight, and Tim accepts it with good grace, even if one hand does find it’s way around Damian’s bare back to skim over the warm skin and down, to cup his buttocks through the towel.

Damian smiles against his mouth.

“Soon, ya amar. Fi sarir alzawjia.”

Tim frowns.

“In our marital bed.” And with that husky promise, Damian leaves him.

Suddenly feeling much less sleepy, Tim retreats into his own room.

#

Insomnia is as insomnia does, and he knows doctors advise against entertaining yourself with your phone because it only wakes you up further, but Tim really needs to know who the approved caterers are at the Art Gallery, or he’ll never get back to sleep.

He hates how Ra’s gets into his head. He only looked at the stupid website to prove a point but now, staring at the ceiling, he can’t get it out of his head.

It’s ridiculous to keep looking at the website. He and Damian aren’t planning to make it legal any time soon. It’s a fantasy.

Only.

Well.

If he is going to fantasise, then there’s no harm in furnishing that fantasy with a few real life details. Like the fact the Art Gallery can seat 200 people for silver service. Or that guests can tour the exhibitions while he and Damian are having photographs taken. Or that the ceremony is held in front of [Nigel Phelp’s famous picture of the old Wayne Enterprise tower from under the viaduct](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2RAgQsbI_yg/UyxU09dnGjI/AAAAAAAAlj0/jzvzIUQ50dg/s1600/Oldgotham-1.jpg), that Damian adores.

Tim puts his phone down abruptly. He’s not planning a wedding.

He lasts about ten minutes in the darkness before his thumb finds the fingerprint sensor and it lights up again.

They’d have their first dance in the sculpture hall, between the black marble pillars.

#

The next evening they wash the walls, and the day after that they start on the bathroom. Getting rid of the old furniture proves a challenge until Damian remembers an experimental shrinking ray borrowed from Ryan Choi.

“The mission required something that would affect the size but not the mass,” Damian says. “We will have to move the pieces of furniture one at a time.”

“Or,” Tim says, “we can use Trickster’s anti-gravity boots. There’s been a pair here since the Rogues attacked San Francisco a few years back.”

“How do we put the bed into the boots? It won’t fit before we shrink it, and we won’t be able to lift it after we shrink it.”

“Why not? We could lift it now.”

“But it will be too small after. We’d barely be able to fit a finger on it each.”

“So we put the boots on two of the legs, then we’ll shrink it.”

“Won’t we also shrink the boots?”

“Does that matter?”

“Let’s try it out with something smaller first.”

So it takes a bit of trial and error, but eventually they get the damp beds and the broken chairs and rusted out showers out of the cave. Tim orders most of the new furniture to the office, but he makes good on his promise to Damian and commissions the bed from the shop upstairs.

“It’s really one of our simpler models,” the assistant says doubtfully. “I know I’ve seen you in here a few times. Are you sure you’re not interested in something with more restraint hoops?”

“No. That’s not really our pleasure,” Tim says. “What colours does the canopy come in?”

And suddenly it all comes together in a single Saturday afternoon. Oracle has messaged him to say Dick is in the city, and Tim is glad he’s got an excuse to stay in the cave. Damian needs time with his older brother, anyway. He’s collected the bed from the store above and smuggled it through the lift (thank god they perfected the shrink ray and boots combo). It’s the final touch.

Everything is clean. The old costumes and souvenirs have been tidied away, the kitchen area is fully refitted with new appliances and copper accessories, the rest rooms are back to sparkling white with new power showers, the rec area has new sofas and the walls are decorated with Damian’s art and Tim’s photographs, and lined up against the wall is a set of pet beds so luxurious they cost more than the king size in their own bedroom. The computer has been fully upgraded to Tim’s standards, thanks to a few donations from Oracle, and Steph has shipped Redbird across the states for him. A wall full of bat- and bird-arangs ornaments the gym, Damian’s katanas hang over the ramp to the garage, and Tim’s bo staffs flank it.

Tim smooths the sheets down on the new bed and steps back to admire it. It’s a super king size, with wrought steel posts in an strong but elegant filigree. The mattress is pocket sprung with a memory foam layer, conductive gel lining for temperature regulation, and a moisture wicking damask cover. The canopy is burgundy silk, and the sheets are dove grey egyptian cotton with burgundy piping.

It’s their marital bed.

Tim’s stomach flips.

They haven’t had sex since the office. It’s preying on him. When they’re together he finds he’s catching himself as he reaches for Damian. He wants to touch him, wants to hold him tight, but doesn’t want another conversation about how they have to be careful around Damian’s friends.

If their roles were reversed Tim would wonder if it was spite, punishment for months of “soon”, but that’s because Tim has a passive aggressive streak a mile wide, while Damian has always been straight up aggressive aggressive. Damian genuinely means to be considerate. Tim suspects he’s overcompensating, and Jon is not so much hurting as horny, but he’s decided not to share that observation with Damian.

He’s censoring himself when it comes to anything around sex. He doesn’t want Damian to feel pressured. He doesn’t want to place temptation between them. He doesn’t want to make Damian uncomfortable, to make Damian doubt himself, to make Damian _stop_ again. Oh, he knows it good they did, that they proved to themselves they could, but while they’re still rebuilding so much of the intimacy between them after the fight it was a cold shock to realise things weren’t going to go straight back to the way they were before. Tim did that. Tim ruined that. Damian has doubts about them because of Tim.

Except ‘before’ is a chimera, and Tim knows it. He’s not pining for the guilt and pain of sneaking around. He’s not wistfully dreaming of the period when they were pretending nothing happened. And he’s definitely not hoping for a return to the claustrophobic voyeurism of Ra’s oubliette.

It’s hard to accept they don’t have a before, that there isn’t a golden period he’s harking back to. Everything feels like it’s two degrees off centre and he can’t orientate himself properly because they don’t have a magnetic north to find.

Damian’s asked for a marital bed and Tim’s provided it, but part of him’s scared it’s just magical thinking, that Damian’s lost interest in him and is pinning his hopes on a concept to refire his passions. What if the bed doesn’t live up to the pressure they’re pinning on it? It’s so much harder to start having sex than it is to stop it.

They promised each other so much, and it ought to be in reach now, but they’re both holding back.

Tim reaches into his pocket. He’s got his own fantasy scenario he’s hoping will be the magic salve for everything they said to each other.

He can’t stop picturing black, gold and red decor, a string quartet, an aisle, an altar.

He takes the box out of his pocket and the ring out of the box. He lays it on one of the dove grey pillows.

Nothing says marital bed like an engagement ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that made a few of you squee!
> 
> Lots of references in this part:
> 
> Jerry Goldsmith is the composer for the early Star Trek films. I figure Tim thinks that's a good, sneaky way to get Damian into watching them.
> 
> My headcanon is that most of Gotham Art Gallery is filled with what's basically [the concept art for the Burton films](http://filmsketchr.blogspot.com/2014/03/towering-batman-1989-gotham-city.html) (the most aesthetically pleasing of the Batman films)
> 
> [Sunstone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunstone_\(comics\)) gave me the impression bondage beds were beautiful works of art, but then you google them and most are just very ugly and kinda cheap looking. So no reference for that - imagine something pretty and sexy and a bit Tim Burton ish (but not creepy). Also I made myself jealous googling fancy mattresses, because ours is old and we've been promising ourselves a new (non-kinky) bed since we got married but we can't afford it right now, but when we can it's going to have _all_ the space age technology.


	41. In which Dick has some big brotherly advice to impart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Generally I'm not a big fan of OCs, especially in a fandom with so many canon characters (frankly, I'm having enough trouble keeping the canon cast straight!) but there is a bit of a gap when it comes to Teen Titan age cast, so I've indulged myself with a new addition to the Marvel family. This isn't really going to come up here at any point, because it's outside of the scope of the story and Tim and Damian don't know, but I always thought the Marvels would be a great legacy to introduce a significant canon trans character in. Little closeted transgirl Maggie saying Shazam for the first time and seeing her new body and asking the wizard what happens if she just never says it again ("Nothing, to be honest." "Awesome!").
> 
> Anyway, it's not relevant, but imagine there's a crossover comic about this set of Titans and that's one of Very Special Life Lesson arcs that happens to be going on at the same time all this is taking place in its own miniseries.

_Dearest brother,_

_There was a time when your good opinion was the only one that mattered to me. I cloaked my devotion in terms of my father’s approval, but yours was what I craved. You gave it to me freely, which confused me. I grew greedy for your love, addicted to it, resented others who could also exercise their rights over it. Even though my words and actions showed the world I had no claim to your love, still you had faith in me._

_I fought myself to be the person you thought I could be. I found the parts of myself you saw and made them bigger, brighter, until they outshone the darkness I think I will always carry._

_You loved me when I did not deserve it, and you made me deserving of love._

_I know you’ll forgive me. Do not think I take this fact for granted. It is what makes you uniquely you, your capacity for love and forgiveness, and that I have abused your nature yet again is something it will take me some time to forgive in myself._

_Our actions were not taken lightly. I can’t justify them to you, only tell you how much I have missed you in the past months and how desperately I wished I could take you into my confidence. But I am an adult now, and I know I cannot claim all your love for myself: you have other loyalties and to ask you to keep this secret for us would have placed undue burden on you._

_I adore him, Richard. I see everything you tried to show me about him. I have done things I doubted I would ever do, felt emotions I believed could only be roused in more deserving beings, learned things about myself I thought were walled off from me._

_Take care of father for me. Take care of Alfred, and Jason, and Cass. But most importantly, take care of yourself. I look forward to when we are reunited. We will talk as adults, as brothers, and I will tell you everything my heart has been bursting with._

_I am married, Richard. I am in love. I understand everything._

_Your brother  
Damian_

#

“Hey, is that Ni- Dick Grayson?”

Damian risks glancing away from the battle. Jon is right; his brother is standing with the rest of the crowd, watching them.

“Who?” Iris asks, glancing around.

“Uh. He’s a famous guy from Gotham. Famous dad. You know.”

Damian roles his eyes. “He’s a Wayne,” he says.

“Oh!” Iris flashes a smile at him and shuts up.

“You’re not into all that celebrity gossip?” Maggie Marvel asks. The latest addition to their team still hasn’t Shazamed in front of them to reveal her civilian identity, so Damian’s forbidden the team from revealing his. Despite her secrecy, Jon and Jai have both been flirting with her, which caused some tension on Thanagar. Damian had found himself bonding with Iris, of all people, over his increasing irritation at the juvenile situation.

“Who, me? No, but my brother is.” Iris smirks and zips behind their still nameless foe. Damian fires his grapple at her and she grabs it, circling the giant being’s feet until its legs are pinned, and it topples like a redwood.

Damian leaves the others to hand the being over to the authorities. He finds a deserted alley to change in, and sidles into the back of the crowd. Dick hasn’t moved.

“Here to talk to me?” Damian asks.

“Both of you, if you’ll let me,” Dick says. “Where’s Tim?”

Damian considers. “He’s busy,” he says eventually. “I don’t think a surprise visit is a good idea right now. If you want to see him we should call him first.”

Dick swallows. “If that’s what you think.”

Neither of them move.

“Do you want to get a coffee?” Dick asks.

Damian shakes his head. “No. But… I would appreciate it if you accompanied me on an errand.”

“Uh, sure.”

Damian leads him into SoMa, towards the Diamond Exchange.

“You’ve known Tim longer than I have, than any of us apart from father. Longer, if you count from when he was an infant,” Damian says.

“Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t say I knew him back then, but I got to know him once he was training with Bruce.” Dick shoves his hands in his pockets. “Damian, I know he didn’t plan all this with Ra’s. I can see why Bruce was worried, but that’s about him, and how he feels like he’s failed Tim. We’ve all failed Tim at some point, but Bruce… he blames himself for things I know for a fact Tim doesn’t, and that’s why he believes Tim could have betrayed him. He thinks he deserves betrayal.”

“Tt. Do you know his ring size?”

Dick stops in the middle of the street. Damian keeps walking a few paces, assuming his brother will catch up, but stops when it becomes apparent he won’t.

Pedestrians flow around them.

“Richard?”

Dick springs back to life and stumbles to Damian’s side.

“Aren’t you mad at me?” he asks.

“I’m not happy with you,” Damian says. “Your behaviour towards Tim left a lot to be desired.”

“I was hurt.” Dick defends himself automatically. “I mean, I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry as well. It won’t happen again.” Damian bites the inside of his cheek, not sure about the sincerity of his own apology. Sincerity is important to healing. “Not the scenario is likely to occur again. But if it did, if there is a change to the timeline of some kind, I will make different choices.”

“So will I,” Dick promises. “I’d really like to hear your side of the story, baby brother.”

He reaches out with one arm, and for a moment Damian feels like time has stopped. Dick’s movement slows, pauses, and Damian would swear the rest of the world does too. His breath is caught in his chest and he feels twelve years old again, confronted by the brother he thought was dead. Seconds and minutes and hours and days aren’t big enough to encompass the weight of what is happening.

And then Dick slips his arm around Damian’s waist, and everything snaps back to how it ought to be.

He is forgiven.

“I can’t believe how tall you got,” Dick grumbles. “I should be able to put one arm around your shoulders and give you a noogie with the other. I can barely cuddle you any more.”

All the air caught in Damian’s lungs comes out in a whoosh, and wraps his arm around Dick’s shoulders and squeezes his older, smaller brother to his side.

“Damian?”

Damian licks his lips. They start walking again.

“You still want to cuddle me?” Damian asks softly.

“Of course I do! You’ll always be my baby brother.”

“I’m not a baby.” Damian looks down at their feet. His natural stride is longer than Dick’s, but Dick is stretching just enough that their heels hit the ground together. “I’m… I’ve changed so much. I didn’t know if our relationship had to change as well.”

“Things do change when you’re in a relationship - a romantic relationship - but our foundations are still the same. I don’t care if you’re married with kids and grandkids and what have you, you’ll always be my Robin.” Dick tightens his arm around Damian’s shoulders. “How is your relationship with Tim?”

Damian rests his head against Dick’s.

“It’s everything,” he says.

“Tell me.”

They’re in public, so Damian has to skirt around some of the truth, but he trusts Dick can fill in the gaps himself. He and Tim have talked about a public facing version of their story, so he has an outline sketched out.

“You recall my eighteenth birthday, when the board attempted to oust Tim from his position at Wayne Enterprises?”

“When the ado-”

Damian cuts Dick off with a squeeze.

“Tim… appreciated the extent to which I supported him, and since father was indisposed accompanied me to dinner.”

Dick looks faintly confused.

Damian sighs. “You know you have attracted some attention, coming to San Francisco like this? Our whole family remains the darling of the gossip pages. Since we are ‘al fresco’, there is only so much detail I can go into.”

“Well, why don’t we go back to your place, and you can tell me everything?”

“Because since you _are_ here, I wish your assistance on an errand,” Damian reminds him. “And I trust you to fill in the gaps.”

Dick looks up at him. “What’s the errand?”

“I wish to buy a gift for Tim.”

“A gift that requires you to know his ring size?”

So, Dick had been paying attention. “Yes. That sort of gift.”

“Oh my god, Damian. Really?” Dick spins around to face Damian, arm still around him. “But you’re already-”

“Not legally,” Damian says. “And… I want to do it properly. I want father there, and you, and the family. The world needs to know that he is the man I choose, the man I love, the only man worthy of me.”

Dick reaches up and brushes a strand of hair out of Damian’s eyes.

“You want our approval.”

Damian bites the inside of his cheek.

“Okay,” Dick says. “I’ll come shopping with you. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve still got some reservations about all of this, but you have to know they come from the fact I love you - I love both of you - and I want you to be happy.”

“And I must convince you I am?” Damian says sourly. “Is that something you’d demand of Jason or Cass?”

“Of course,” Dick says. “That’s my job as big brother. Come on, you said you wanted to tell me. Tim said he wanted to tell me. Do you not think all this would have been easier if you just had?”

“Obviously,” Damian says. “But it would have put you in a difficult position. And the secrecy was… entertaining, at least at first.”

Dick considers his younger brother. “I think,” he says slowly, “that those reasons should be the other way around, shouldn’t they?”

“For what reason?”

“Because you’re eighteen, Damian. Sneaking around behind your father’s back is exciting. It’s the sort of escapades boys your age should be getting up to. Not… the rest of this.”

“I am not like boys my age. I never have been. Tim understands that, because he is the same. Being forced to waste my time at school, surrounded by cretins who couldn’t understand half of what I’ve been through; I am _miserable_ when you try and make me act like a child I am not.”

A nearby phone makes a shutter sound. Damian doesn’t know if its owner is taking pictures of him or just a selfie, and he doesn’t care. If the whole world knows he is done being treated like a child, so be it.

“My eighteenth birthday, Tim treated me like an adult,” Damian says. “We talked in a way I have never talked with anyone else.”

“He said you nearly kissed, that night.”

Damian nods.

Dick releases him and swings back to Damian’s side. He keeps his arm around Damian’s waist, which is reassuring.

“We both tried to deny the chemistry at first,” Damian says. “And then we went to Turkey at the behest of that venture capitalist.”

“Ah yes, that guy,” Dick says dryly.

“My grandfather.” Damian smiles at Dick’s tone. “He put a proposition to us, we considered it, and we accepted it. And then we-” he can’t say consummated it, not in the middle of the street, but the only alternative he can think of tastes ridiculous on his tongue “- had a, um. Wild Night of Passion.”

‘Consummated’ might have been better. This is the problem with only having talked the narrative through in terms of Dowd’s bodice ripping vocabulary.

“A wild, uh, night? Of passion?” Dick is shaking with suppressed laughter next to him.

“Yes.” Damian looks down at the sidewalk ahead of them. “I lost my virginity,” he says with raw honesty, and Dick immediately calms.

“Oh, Dami.”

“It was significant. Powerful. Perfect.” Damian turns to look at Dick. “He treated me with respect and compassion, he taught me things about myself I had never imagined, and he showed me pleasures that still dominate my fantasy landscape when he is unavailable to sate me.”

“Well that’s… Oh, Dami.” Dick’s arm loosens around his waist like he’s about to pull away, and Damian swallows back panic before Dick resecures his grip. “Dami, Dami, Dami.”

“Well, it’s true,” Damian says, a little stung. He was scared he’d shocked his brother, but instead he’d merely inspired patronising amusement. Should he have waffled and obscured by claiming the loss of flowers and seismic sentiments? He is not a prudish maiden aunt. He does not deserve to be laughed at like a child who ha said something amusing by accident. “He wrung multiple orgasms from me. Acts included frottage, fellatio, digital and oral stimulation and anal penetration.”

Dick’s cheeks are bright pink, and Damian can’t tell if he’s embarrassed his brother or if the older man is suppressing another bout of giggles at Damian’s expense.

“We promised ourselves it would be just the one night.” Damian plows on with the narrative, ignoring his flushed sibling. “We should have known it wouldn’t be. We didn’t even manage to last the plane ride home without succumbing to lust again. But, in truth, lust was not our problem. The emotional intimacy of our shared experience left us both aching and bereft when parted. 

“He avoided visiting the manor, and I tried to focus on my studies. Only, when we did encounter each other again, it was immediately apparent our separation had not had the intended effect. We resolved to focus on our own paths, but to acknowledge privately what had happened between us. Gradually, temptation became increasingly impossible to resist. We shared intimate images and sexually charged conversation, and ultimately we rekindled the physical side of the relationship shortly before my graduation ceremony.”

“How shortly before?” Dick interrupts.

“About twenty minutes before we left the house.”

“Do you know how close I was to coming to fetch you?”

“Yes.”

“Hah! I knew you got off on sneaking around. I didn’t realise it had been quite so much under our noses as that, though.”

“We-”

“Don’t tell me what you did!” Dick puts his hand over Damian’s mouth. “Honestly, when you said you had to be discrete because we’re in public, I was expecting you to… well, be discrete. Not reel off a list of sex acts like the back cover of a porn DVD.”

“Pornography comes on discs?” If he’d known that his adolescent frustrations would have been so much easier to purge!

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Oh, Dami.” Dick reaches up and ruffles his hair.

“Stop that.”

“Never, baby brother.”

Damian steers his irritating limpet of a sibling into a small store in the corner of a modern shopping complex.

“I have been considering an antique,” he tells Dick, "due to his parents’ professions. However, he has grandfather’s wife’s ring, which is such.”

“I’d go new,” Dick says immediately. “Something that’s only ever passed from you to him.”

Damian steps over to a different counter. “Diamonds?”

“Nothing raised too high - you want something that’s practical - but it _is_ traditional.”

“He does enjoy engaging with tradition.” Damian frowns at the selection in the case. “Not here,” he decides.

“But I have-” The assistant is pulling a tray of rings out, but Damian is already dragging his brother out of the store.

They hit two more shops which hold Damian’s attention for less than 100 seconds each. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he has strong opinions about what he’s not. Damian leads them back out of the small store. He’s starting to feel that lingering sense of unease that prefaces the sense of dread which comes before the panic attack because Timothy is his husband and Damian should know him better than anyone and it shouldn’t be this hard to buy an engagement ring for a man you’ve already given an engagement ring to.

Dick snags two cups of iced tea from a stall and hands one to Damian.

“Refuel,” he says, giving Damian’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

It’s a blend of corn syrup and food colourings that has never seen any kind of plant life, let alone a tea leaf. Dick’s is blue and Damian’s is a lurid orange. Damian scowls at it.

“You can’t make a good decision with low blood sugar,” Dick says. “Come on, let’s sit down and you can tell me more about you and Tim. What was it like working together?”

“Difficult. Thilling.” Damian stares at the nuclear liquid in its clear plastic cup. “We were so close, but right under father’s nose. We could only snatch moments together, so we prioritised mutually satisfying activities.”

Dick wriggles his eyebrows. “Mutually satisfying?”

“We satisfied each other in the boardroom, and on Tim’s desk.”

“No! I’ve been working at that desk!”

“Tt. As though you’ve been working.”

“I’ve been sitting there watching Youtube. Ugh. Did you guys sanitise it at least?”

“We had alcohol-based wipes.”

“Oh god.”

Damian smirks. The ice tea seller nearby looks faintly scandalised.

“How about the fight?” Dick asks.

“The secrecy was wearing on me. On both of us. I found it hard to explain my building frustration to him. We both started falling back on childish habits to soothe ourselves, which, as you recall, are not compatible.”

“And it all boiled over?”

“We are both passionate people are heart, though we maintain cool exteriors.”

“Damian, I love you, but you have never maintained a cool exterior. Icy, when you choose. Fiery, when you get away from yourself. Cool, not so much.”

“Tt.”

“Why do you want to propose to him again now, Dami?”

“Because I want to _marry_ him.” Hasn’t he made this clear already?

“You’ve only been together a few months. You’re still recovering from your first big fight.”

“We are fully recovered.” Damian stands. He throws the remains of the iced tea into a nearby trash can and sets off again. There must be a ring in this city somewhere that's right, a small band of metal that can somehow hold all the meaning he needs it to. A diamond to make the world see him as adult enough to make this commitment. Gold to make their family accept their relationship with the enthusiasm it deserves.

“You’re back in the honeymoon phase. Dami, slow down.”

Damian checks his pace and lets his brother catch up with him.

“I mean, you and Tim. But also thanks.” Dick puts a hand on Damian’s shoulder. Damian shakes it off, and waits for Dick to replace it. He doesn’t. “Damian, I’m your big brother, right? I’ve got experience you haven’t. I’ve done the engagement thing, did it right up until the altar. If Raven hadn’t incinerated the priest I’d be married and divorced by now.”

“You don’t know you’d be divorced,” Damian objects immediately, though he’s a little distracted by the idea of Roth burning a man to death, and how casually Dick references it.

“I do,” Dick says. “Look, I know you have a lot more life experience than the average person your age, and I know you’re an adult, and mature, and you know your own mind, but you haven’t lived through some things I have, okay? 

“I kept pushing and pushing to marry Kory, and every time someone pushed back it just made me more sure I was right, and at first when it didn’t happen and everything fell apart I was so sure if we’d gone through with it things would have been fine. And then… six months, maybe a year later? I could suddenly see everything people kept trying to point out to me. People talk about relationships needing hard work, and I thought because I was working hard it meant this had to be the right relationship. It wasn’t. I was doing the wrong work.

“It worries me that the two of you have had this really intense relationship so far, with Turkey and the secrecy and the hot desk sex and the fight and fleeing across the country and… and everything. Us, the family, not reacting the way you needed us to. You’ve both put a lot of work into this relationship in a short space of time.”

Dick swallows, makes a half gesture that Damian can’t interpret, runs his hands through his own hair.

“Maybe I should just shut up,” Dick says. “I’m here to convince you guys I support you, at least… At least going forward, I guess.”

“You should finish what you were going to say.” Damian’s voice has dropped to a growl, but it’s nerves, not anger, that have robbed him of normal speech.

“I know you’ve got more people on your side now, and the family is coming around. I’ve come around. Barbara says you’ve got a place together.”

“It is… under construction. We’re still staying at the T- with friends, right now. In separate rooms.”

“In separate rooms? Huh.”

“We are being considerate.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t make noises at me, Grayson.”

“No, sorry. I was just… Look, you’ve had this mad, passionate courtship, and now things are finally calming down, and now you’re ring shopping. I’m worried, little D, that you’re so used to everything between you being Big and Important and Dramatic that you’re reacting to an impending calm period by trying to force something Big and Important and Dramatic on it. Maybe you and Tim should just… live together for a while. Get used to life without the drama before you make a commitment like this.”

Damian looks down at his hands.

“We have already made the commitment,” he reminds his brother. “I’m looking forward to when things are calm, when I have him under my roof and I can just take care of him the way he deserves. You don’t know how long I have been fantasising about sharing a meal together, watching a motion picture, sitting in peace, reading together. We have been trying, but it’s not the same where we are living now; it’s the difference between a honeymoon suite and a shared dorm in a hostel. I just want somewhere that’s ours, where he is _mine_.” 

His voice breaks on the final word, and he keeps his gaze lowered, not willing to look up and see that face on Dick that means his brother is picturing him at thirteen again.

“You’ve never even been on a date, have you?” Dick asks. He puts a hand under Damian’s chin and lifts his head so he can meet his eyes. “You don’t need a ring, Damian. Everything you want is right there.”

“He has a ring,” Damian says. “He has _my grandfather_ ’s ring. I want him to have _mine_. It is hard to shake the feeling that we are still walking the path grandfather ordained for us. He brought us together, he oversaw the ceremony, he provided the marital bed. The life I am imagining for us, we need to exorcise him from it. He is insidious. We can’t keep interrogating our every choice to make sure we’re not just following the path he laid out for us.”

“Being engaged is going to change that?”

“It’s a start. A reminder that we are doing this for ourselves.”

He holds Dick’s gaze, though he desperately wants to look away. If Dick tells him one more time he’s making a mistake his resolve will break. Everything feels so delicate right now, like his whole life is one choice away from falling apart. He can’t give up Tim, but he can’t give up Dick, or the Titans, or his family.

“Okay,” Dick says. “But make it a long engagement, okay, little D? Wedding planning is a whirlwind, and if you get stuck into that you won’t have time for long walks along the bay or late night movie marathons. Promise me you’ll make time to actually start dating.”

Damian wants to embrace his brother. His arms twitch, and he’s hyper conscious of the people around them, but he needs a hug. And he needs to initiate it.

“Damian? You okay, baby bro?”

He forces his arms open and takes a faltering step forward. It’s all Dick needs to throw himself into Damian’s arms.

Damian buries his face in his brother’s hair.

“Thank you.”

“I love you, Damian. I love both of you, and I want so much to see you happy.” Dick’s arms are tight around his chest, squeezing the air from his lungs. “I want... I wanted to ask both of you, at once, but I don’t think I can wait. Damian, I want you to be a godfather.”

Damian pulls back.

“Godfather?”

Dick nods.

“Yeah. I’m, uh. I’m gonna be a dad.”

Damian hauls Dick back against him. It doesn’t matter that they’re in public, that people are talking, that people are taking photos. It doesn’t matter what kind of ring he buys for Tim or whether father approves or what Ra’s has planned. 

He’s going to be an uncle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dick: If I can't be a good big brother, how can I be a father?  
> Everyone else: Well, since your kid isn't being raised by Batman, it's probably going to be okay.  
> Dick: ... I was raised by Batman  
> Everyone else: ... Sooooo, a baby! That's exciting.
> 
>  
> 
> (oh, and if you were wondering, Tim and Damian have no idea about each other's plans)


	42. Interlude: Commissioner Gordon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gordon finally gets to have the father to father chat with Bruce Tim told him was coming.

Retirement looms for James Gordon. It’s not a happy prospect. Not only does he have no interest in gardening or model trains or crosswords, or whatever else it is retired men are supposed to enjoy, but he’s a cop, and if there’s one thing that gets a cop killed it’s his colleagues counting the days on his behalf. So sue him if he’s sticking to desk work for the next six months: he’s not taking the risk, not with the news Barbara delivered last week.

For the last month the lamp on the roof has been attracting everyone but the Bat himself. Nightwing picked up most of the calls to start with, then Batgirl started dropping by, and even Huntress, briefly. It’s been Red Hood for the last week; Gordon’s been making Bullock deal with him, since their attitudes to each other is much the same. They’ve had to replace the lamp twice already. 

After Barbara’s bombshell, he’s made it clear to the squad if Nightwing reappears he’s to be brought straight to Gordon’s office. Funnily enough, there’s been no sign of the back flipping vigilante since then.

He’s signing off a purchase order for yet another giant bulb when a shadow falls across his desk.

“The door hasn’t opened, the window is locked shut, and you’re too old to be fooling around with the air conditioning vents,” Jim says. “How long were you hiding behind the filing cabinet?”

“The coat rack,” Batman says.

“Liar.”

Jim looks up, finally, and waves to the chair opposite him. “It’s been a while.”

“I’ve had other priorities.”

“You never have other priorities. Even I’m not as married to the job as you are, and I pulled a seventy hour shift last week thanks to Interpol’s deliberately terrible paperwork. It’s almost like they don’t want us handing international assassins over to them.”

“You’re doing a lot of paperwork these days.”

“I hate it, but it needs doing, and as a Gotham cop I have a whole 20% higher chance of not being shot if I stay in here.” He signs his name with a flourish on the bottom of the purchase order. “But my odds of being caught up in a bomb threat are 17% higher, and if we actually have to house any of the big names in the cells while we’re waiting for Blackgate or Arkham to get off their collective asses, my chance of grievous injury increases by 87%.” He looks up again. “I had to sign off on our insurance premiums last week. It’s grim reading.”

“I wondered.”

“Some things make a man very conscious of his mortality. Like grandchildren.”

“I heard congratulations were in order.”

“Don’t bullshit me.” Gordon leans back in his chair and lifts his glasses to rub his eyes. He’s spent too long staring at computer screens. He doesn’t know how Babs does it. “We both know who knocked her up, and isn’t making an honest woman out of her.”

Batman shifts uncomfortably.

“I’ve known what she was doing the first time she put on a cape and snuck out. I’ve known who she was seeing, too. Don’t stand in here and pretend you’re not reeling with exactly the same news I am, _Bruce_.”

There’s a click. The power goes out, lights, computers, even the background hum of the air conditioning Gordon would have sworn wasn’t even working before. The lights come back pretty quickly, but his computer stays off, and he imagines most of the precinct’s surveillance equipment is in the same state. He wonders when Batman installed the device - or if Barbara did it for him - and whether it's on some automatic set up to fry the surveillance as soon as his real name is mentioned in the wrong context, or if he's got a switch of some kind hidden in his glove. Was the clench of his fist an involuntary reaction to hearing his name, or a deliberate motion to trigger a mini EMP?

There’s a knock at his door.

“Commissioner Gordon?”

“I know! Get someone down to the cells to watch the perps in person, and call IT. Anyone that comes in the front door, log it manually.”

They listen to the person outside shuffle, trying to decide whether to risk asking for any further instructions.

“The way us dinosaurs used to do it, back in the day,” Bullock’s voice echoes through the wood. “How wet behind the ears are you? This is a pen. Repeat after me. Peeeeeen.”

The voices fade as their owners disappear down the corridor.

“Bullock’s still here?” Batman asks, finally taking the seat opposite Gordon.

“Jason didn’t tell you?”

Batman pushes the cowl back. “Don’t show off, Jim.”

Gordon smirks. “Come on, he’s a hard one. The hood covers his whole face, including voice modulation, he’s a good foot taller than he was when he disappeared, and, well. I wasn’t looking for him, not after Ethiopia, and you had the Drake boy.”

Bruce considered. “Who he chose to go after?”

“Amongst other things.” He’s a good detective, and he isn’t going to give away trade secrets now, not after so many years.

He reaches into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulls out a bottle of whisky. There’s no glasses to hand, so he pours them both a measure in two of the cleaner mugs that have been decorating the edge of his desk for some time now. Whisky’s strong, it’ll kill anything growing in them. Especially this stuff.

Bruce takes a mug. Gordon raises his.

“To grandbabies,” he says, and downs the contents of his mug.

He’d sharpened a pencil into this one. Still, too late now. He has to ride it out. He swallows hard.

Bruce sips his.

“I didn’t know any of mine as babies,” he says, just as the silence was about to stretch too long. “It’s going to be very different.”

“Babies are good,” Jim says. “I remember bringing Babs home, all bundled up. Those first weeks when she was just a mass of basic needs, food, sleep, diapers, sometimes all at once, and I was working nights on no sleep. Even when there was the opportunity I wouldn’t take it, I’d lie there and listen to her breathe to make sure she didn’t stop, and count her fingers and toes to make sure they were all still there, and brush those little wisps of red hair.

“And then she started smiling, and that was all the mattered to me, making her smile. You’d think when you bring something so small and helpless into the world you’d want to do anything to make it a safer place for her, but I hated it. I hated leaving her. I’d have let every murderer in Gotham walk free if it meant I got to spend five more minutes in the morning making her smile each day. In Europe fathers get six months with their babies - on top of the mother’s leave - and I have no idea how they get a single one of them to go back to work after. When you see this child, Bruce, you’re not going to want to put it down. Not for the Justice League, not for the Bat Signal, not for the Joker.”

Jim shakes remaining the wood shavings from his mug into the trash and pours another slug of whisky.

“Of course, the baby’s going to have two parents who won’t want to put it down either, and I’m retiring right around when the baby is due. So you’ll have to fight me for it.” He grins, and shrugs. “How are you at peek-a-boo?”

Bruce has a blank look in his eyes. He’s far away right now, not somewhere he can appreciate Jim’s humour. Jim can guess where he is, counting toes and brushing hair and holding something so small and so strong against his chest.

Bruce swirls the whisky in his cup and takes another sip, nose wrinkling. He’s used to better quality, but Jim doesn’t keep anything worth stealing in his desk, just in case.

“I haven’t been a good parent,” Bruce says. He puts the mug down heavily on the desk, and stares past it at Jim. “I’ve failed all my children in one way or another. I’m still failing them. Why should Dick and Barbara trust me with their child?”

“Is this something to do with Red Robin? Whatever he wanted to use the Bat Signal for?”

Jim’s been waiting for the fallout from that for a while now. Father to father, the young man had said.

“Red Robin and… Robin. They were kidnapped by the Demon’s Head. He forced them to marry.”

“Does he take requests?” Jim asks.

Bruce scowls. “Dick says Barbara has made it quite clear that’s not what _she_ wants.”

“I know, I know. And it’s not the same these days, there’s not the stigma, she’s financially independent and they’re friends and it’s all very-” Jim gestures with his mug. “So sue me, I’m greedy. One grandbaby is good, but if they were together, there might be more. And a wedding. Imagine a baby in a tiny suit, Bruce.”

The scowl slips for a second. It’s not quite a smile, but it’s something.

“Aren’t they a bit young, your boys? It’s not legal, is it?”

“They are too young. They have too much history. I can’t imagine they entered into this contract willingly, not at Ra’s behest.” Bruce sighs. “Ra’s has no time for modern legal conventions. Age was not - is not - a barrier.”

“Is not?”

“They think of themselves as married.”

Jim tries to imagine how he’d feel if Barbara came to him and told him she’d got married. Somewhere far away, under pressure, to someone she’d always hated.

When she’d asked him over to dinner, he’d half expected something like that. Not marriage, but maybe to announce an engagement.

“They went through something traumatic together,” Bruce says grimly, “and they latched on to this so-called marriage as a way of taking ownership of the crime that was committed against them. They kept it secret because to expose it to the light would force them to face the truth of what happened.”

“Secret?”

“For months.”

“But they consider themselves married? They’re a couple now?” 

Everyone knows that at least one of Bruce’s children is his biological son, though gossips still speculate about which one, even though it’s pretty well established it’s Damian. The timing makes the most sense, and the similarities between Bruce and Damian have only grown more pronounced as Damian’s grown. Still, a lot of people still speculate that something may have happened between Bruce and his neighbour’s wife which would explain why he was so keen to take the Drake boy in. Physically, Tim Drake is much smaller and slighter, most clearly his mother’s son, but his mind works in very similar ways to Bruce’s.

Personally, Jim has always thought if Timothy isn’t Jack Drake’s son, he’s probably Alfred Pennyworth’s. The butler had quite the reputation back in the day.

He isn’t foolish enough to voice it aloud, though.

“They’re moving in together in San Francisco,” Bruce says.

“It’s all worked out, then.”

“They lied to me, Jim!” Bruce snaps. “They lied to me for months!”

Jim doesn’t answer, just lets it hang in the air between them, and watches the fire burn behind Bruce’s eyes. This is the glare that makes petty criminals turn themselves in, mafiosa turn to mother church, Arkham Rogues turn on each other. This is the glare that gives the Joker pause.

It does nothing to Jim. He sits, and he waits, and he lets his old friend hate him for as long as he needs to while the words wait for him. When he’s ready, they turn on him again, expose Bruce to his own hatred.

“They lied to me.” Bruce repeats, but the fire has gone out. “I trusted them. I loved them. I did everything for them.”

And they hurt him.

“That’s how it works, Bruce. That’s parenthood.”

Bruce slumps back in his chair, cape rustling. He swallows the last of his whisky and holds the mug out for a refill. It says ‘No. #1 Dad’ on the side. Both men mark it, neither remarks on it.

“I just want what’s best for them,” Bruce says.

“I know.”

“They’re too young. They’re going to get hurt.”

“Probably.”

“What’s the point in doing all of this, if it doesn’t stop them from getting hurt? What’s the point in raising children only to put them through the same pain we had to?” Bruce stares into his whisky. “I thought we were supposed to impart our experience so they learn from our mistakes.”

“Which one of your mistakes, precisely, would have warned them off this?” Jim asks. “You never had any adoptive brothers to marry, after all.”

“I nearly married Selena.”

“Ah, so it’s marriage in general that’s the problem. That they should be scared of.” Jim twists his mug in his hands. “We can teach them not to cross the street without looking, or put their hand in the pot to see if the water’s hot. We can be living examples of why not to join the force, or why you shouldn’t piss off journalists, or why condoms are so important.” 

Jim raises a significant eyebrow at Bruce, even though Barbara had been blunt with him about the fact multiple doctors had told her she couldn’t get pregnant; it doesn’t matter, because this is about the example Bruce has set his kids, not the one Jim set his own. 

“We can be there for the best times and the worst times and show them that they can survive both.” He sighs. “If it was in my power, would I rather Barbara had never loved at all, rather than had her heart broken repeatedly? I don’t know. She’ll never not love Dick, and now she’s guarded her heart against anyone else. But would I have cursed her to be alone, to save her from that?”

“He’ll never not love her, either,” Bruce says. “He holds everyone else to her, and finds them wanting.”

“She doesn’t want to be on a pedestal.”

“I know. He knows. Their history overshadows anything they could make together now.”

“Apart from a baby.”

“Apart from that.” Bruce sighs. “I don’t know how to explain it, Jim. Tim and Damian. I can’t see how it can work. It’s like there’s something there, something everyone else can see that I can’t, and it’s driving me crazy. I don’t want to stand in their way, but I’m so scared for them. I feel like the boy who sees the emperor is naked, and no one’s listening.”

“So let the emperor be naked for a little while longer.” Jim shrugs. “And when you’re right, be a parent again; hold them while they cry, stroke their hair, watch them sleep. Be strong and show them they’ll get through it.”

“And never say ‘I told you so’?”

“That’s parenthood.”

“What’s grandparenthood like, do you think?”

“I hear it’s even better. None of the bad bits, no night feeds, no diapers. Just peek-a-boo and sugary treats just before bedtime all the way.”

“A toast,” Bruce says, “to peek-a-boo.”

“To peek-a-boo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gordon here is conflating Scandanavia with the whole continent, but I don't know if there's anywhere in Europe that has the complete absence of parental leave you get in America (having a baby is not an illness or a disability!).


	43. In which they are mutually surprised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys I have a teeny tiny Christmas nephew! 4lb 3oz of tiny! (which I can share here because I'm not pre-empting my sister's announcement, as far as I know) I am very much in tune with opening paragraph Tim right now.
> 
> I have most of the next chapter written so I'll probably put that up before Christmas, but I'm going to have to do some serious knitting, because teeny tiny nephew is a month and a half early and has nothing that will fit him. We are very close to the end; it's mostly just wrapping up from here on out, which will have to wait for the new year.

A baby. There’s going to be a baby.

He’s going to be an uncle.

He comes from a family of only children. He had to invent an uncle for himself, and now he’s going to be one.

He’s going to be an uncle and a godfather. 

A godfather.

He’s going to be trusted with the wellbeing of a baby.

“Ya amar?”

He doesn’t know anything about babies.

“I don’t know anything about babies,” Tim says, staring down at his hands. How do you hold a baby? They’re very delicate. Their heads are too big and they need supporting and you have to do it right. What if Dick hands him the baby and he kills it just by holding it wrong?

“Neither does Richard,” Damian says. “I believe Barbara is lacking in practical experience too.”

“Oh god. Is there anyone who knows anything about babies? We can’t all just figure it out. We’re vigilantes. You can’t hack a baby. You can’t do quadruple flips with a baby. You can’t fight crime with a baby!”

“No one is going to fight crime with the baby. I’m sure Pennyworth must know something about infants. And James Gordon. He has experience. And there are books.”

Research. He can do research. Billions of people have had babies and raised them to adulthood without accidentally dropping them on their heads. Some of those people have recorded how they achieved that.

Tim takes a deep breath. “You’re right, of course. We can do this. We have six months to learn everything we need to know.”

“Exactly. Besides, we don’t need to learn everything beforehand. We merely need to learn enough to stay ahead of the infant.”

Tim looks at his husband. “You’re freaking out about this too,” he realises.

“Grayson is going to be a parent,” Damian states with slow deliberation, but the wideness of his eyes betrays his disbelief in his own words. He stares at Tim. “What are we to him now he has conceived a child?”

“We’re not... He still feels the same way about us he’s always felt,” Tim reassures him. He puts his hands on Damian’s arms. “He needs us now more than ever.”

“Are you guys okay out here?”

Tim’s eyes snap to the door of the Tower. He and Damian are by the pool, taking advantage of Dick’s enthusiastic anecdote about some time the original five had met a boyband no one remembers to regroup and discuss Dick’s news.

“Yeah, Jon, we’re fine,” Tim says. “Just talking over some news.”

“You guys have news?”

“From Dick,” Tim clarifies, though it’s interesting Jon thinks they might. He knows they’re moving to Batcave West. It was meant to be today, but with Dick’s visit everything’s been put back. 

The Titans are thrilled to have one of the founders in their midst. Dick’s enjoying the attention, performing routines for them and regaling them with tails of the old days. Jai and Iris keep bugging him for more about their dad.

Tim’s barely had time to speak to him. He got to the Tower maybe an hour after Dick and Damian. Dick pulled him aside for a tight hug, a quick apology, and The Big News, and before Tim had time to really take it all in they were being dragged back into the main room because Iris had returned with pizza and everything was loud and raucous and full of teenagers and Tim had had to get out of there, just for a minute.

Damian had given him a few minutes to process it before following him out to the pool. Tim doesn’t know how long they’ve been out there.

He just knows there’s going to be a baby.

“Oh god,” he says. “This is what Barbara meant when she said something else would come along.”

“Barbara?”

Oh right, Jon.

Damian shakes off Tim’s grip and walks over to Jon. Tim doesn’t know what Damian says, but Jon hugs him and leaves.

The night air smells of chlorine from the pool and ozone from the ocean. Titus is snuffling around the flowerbeds - he’s learnt his lesson about Kori’s garden already, thankfully - and laughter echoes from inside the Tower. If Tim steps away from the wall he can see Treasure Island, with his office. He’s going to take Dick there tomorrow. Dick, who’s having a baby.

Damian slides between Tim and the wall and wraps him in a loose embrace, resting his chin on Tim’s head. Tim leans back against his chest and lets himself feel safe.

“I wish,” Tim says, “that there was a way to slow everything down. To press pause, just for a moment. To make everything quiet.”

“We do not live quiet lives, ya amar.”

“A baby is… it’s like a countdown. Less than six months until everything changes.”

“It will come shortly after Christmas.”

“Yesterday, Christmas seemed ridiculously far off. Now it’s… now you’re going to start college and then before we know it there’s going to be Thanksgiving and then my graduation and then Christmas and New Years and a baby shower and then a baby.”

“Are you on track to graduate?”

Tim tries to think. “Probably?”

“I was talking to Richard today about our relationship. He said that everything so far has been ‘big’. He suggested we take some time to make things slower, and calmer, and focus on each other for a while instead of outside influences.”

“We don’t live small lives, either,” Tim says.

Damian nuzzles Tim’s neck and tightens his arms around Tim’s waist, fingers tangling in his t-shirt. He’s still wearing the same clothes he had for decorating, stale with sweat and dust. He’d planned to shower and change before welcoming Damian into their new home. There’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge and an order on hold at a local takeaway. 

He’d planned a small evening, just them, at their place.

They don’t live small lives.

“Timothy,” Damian speaks into his hair, lips brushing the shell of Tim’s ear, “in the name of honest and open communication, I must admit something. Richard’s words scared me. What if we cannot find a way forward without something to battle against uniting us? But equally, what if we never have the quiet time to focus on each other, and we become strangers in the night as Richard and Barbara did?”

“I don’t know,” Tim says.

“I thought this summer we would have time together, but university looms, and we are still snatching moments like this.”

Tim turns in Damian’s arms to face him, tilts his head up and presses a kiss to his husband’s lips.

“So let’s go,” he says.

“Go?”

“Go back to our place. Dick can stay here. We’ll say goodbye and get Titus and Pennyworth and Bandit and go sleep in our own bed tonight.”

“But- but we...” Damian frowns. “I cannot think of anything that is stopping us. Is there really nothing?”

“There’s really nothing,” Tim says. “We can just… go. I’ll say goodbye to Dick - I need to arrange when and where to meet with him tomorrow, anyway, and I don’t want him to think we’re leaving because I’m still mad at him - and you round up the animals.”

Damian raises a hand to Tim’s cheek and runs his thumb along Tim’s cheekbone as he kisses him, open mouthed, a soft noise rumbling from his chest that’s somewhere between a moan and a purr. Tim whimpers against his lips and presses tight against him.

“I love you,” Damian says when he finally breaks it off for air.

“Ana bahebak.”

#

“I got the champagne to celebrate moving in,” Tim says, smothering a yawn with one hand.

“A nice thought,” Damian says. Titus is still glued to his side, sniffing everything suspiciously. “Perhaps we could save it for tomorrow? Invite Grayson for dinner and have a double celebration. I don’t think either of us will appreciate it properly tonight.”

“You mean I’ll fall asleep halfway through the first glass,” Tim says, “and you’ll have to carry me to bed.”

Damian cocks his head to one side. “I look forward to evenings like that.”

Tim closes the fridge and frowns down at Titus. “Does he want to go out again?”

“He’s just getting used to the space.”

“He’s being very clingy.”

Damian ruffles the fur at Titus’s neck. “He won’t settle if we’re not in his eye line, not in an unfamiliar space. Everything here smells wrong to him.”

“You complained about the smell!”

“Of course I did,” Damian says, frowning. “It was bad. But it doesn’t smell like us, yet.”

Tim forces his shoulders back down from around his ears. “Sorry. I know you’re not criticising, but it took me a lot of work today to get everything ready and I’m tired. I _cleaned_ for you, Damian.” Communication, that’s the key. Clear, precise communication, judgement free. Describe what you’re feeling without assigning blame for those emotions.

Damian lets go of Titus and steps forwards, taking Tim’s hands in his.

“I appreciate it, ya amar, I do. And Titus will as well.”

The dog winds his way between them, pushing against Tim’s shins to make space for him beside his master.

“He’s not sleeping in the bed,” Tim says.

“No, he’s not.”

“If we let him sleep in the room he’ll end up in the bed.”

“He won’t.”

“He will, Damian.”

“I promise, ya amar.”

“Give me one example of a time he slept in your room and wasn’t on your bed. In your bed.”

Damian opens his mouth, and closes it again.

Tim leans over the hound and presses his lips to Damian’s slack cheek. “I love you, and I want you to myself. You’ve made a lot of promises about our marital bed, and I’m not going to let you keep them with Titus there too.”

“Tt.”

“Same goes for the cat. And the civet. Especially the civet!”

Damian steps away from Tim and Titus. He grabs the dog bed and pulls it over to the area they’ve set up as a den and drops it in front of the sofa, Titus close on his heels. Damian drops onto the sofa and puts his feet in the dog bed, and after a couple of attempts to climb onto the sofa beside him that Damian fends off, the hound settles into the bed on top of Damian’s feet.

Tim fills the teakettle and gets the robin mugs they’ve lifted from the Tower out of the cupboard he only just put them away in.

“Not coffee,” Damian says, glancing over the back of the sofa.

“Cocoa,” Tim says. “Alfred sent us a box of his own powdered blend.” Because of course Alfred blends his own instant cocoa, rather than buy it. And of course it's the best instant cocoa Tim has ever had.

“A sign of his approval.”

Tim drops some vegetarian marshmallows into the cocoa and brings both mugs over to the coffee table.

The only sound in the cave is the creak of the sofa springs and the wheeze of Titus’s breath. No thumping of superspeed steps from the floor above, no clanking of experimental machinery coming from below them, no constant babble of voices.

The silence is deafening.

“TV?” Tim asks.

There’s a brief pause before Damian nods.

There’s an old episode of the Twilight Zone showing, a group of strangers trapped in a blank room. Even though Tim knows the twist he’s still unsettled by their stilted conversation and increasing desperation.

The sofa that seemed so perfect in the store is suddenly all wrong. The cushions are too hard, the seat is too deep, the back is too low. Tim fidgets, bringing his legs up to one side, then crossing them, then putting his feet back on the floor. He picks up his cocoa and swallows half of it in one go, burning the roof of his mouth. The coffee table is suddenly too far away, despite being fine a moment ago, and he balances the mug on the arm of the chair until it starts to slip, and only a decade of bat-training prevents their new home being covered in hot chocolate.

Damian puts an arm out and pulls Tim against him. Tim turns, resting his back against Damian’s side, and lets Damian’s arm settle around his waist. He tips his head back against Daman’s shoulder.

The next thing he knows he’s being laid out gently on soft cotton sheets.

“You carried me over the threshold,” he says, propping himself up on his elbows.

“I’d rather you’d been awake for it,” Damian says, “but you looked so peaceful. You rarely look peaceful.” The mattress dips as he sits on the bed beside Tim. “I’m sorry you awoke.”

Tim yawns. “I’m not sleeping in my clothes.” He sits up and pulls his t-shirt and over his head. His first instinct is to throw it on the floor to deal with in the morning, but they have a perfectly good laundry basket for a reason.

He shuffles off the bed, unbuttoning his pants at the same time. By the time he reaches the bathroom door he’s down to his boxers and socks, other clothes in a tangle under his arm.

He dumps his clothes in the laundry basket, proud of himself for making the effort for Damian’s sake - for _their_ sake, the sake of conjugal harmony - washes his face and brushes his teeth.

When he returns to the bedroom Damian’s still sat on the bed. He hasn’t moved.

“Baby bat?”

Oh shit.

The ring.

There was meant to be champagne and flirting and meaningful words and a romantic reveal. He’s not meant to be in his boxers with toothpaste on his chin, blinking stupidly from the bathroom door. He’d had it all planned out, and then Dick’s news had pushed it so far out of his head he’d forgotten he left the ring on the pillow.

“Damian?”

Damian turns, slipping off the bed as he does so and dropping to one knee in a smooth movement.

He’s got Tim’s ring on his left hand, and in his right is another ring.

Tim blinks stupidly for a second, wondering if he’s dreaming this.

“Timothy?”

“I love you,” Tim says. “How did you know?”

“That you love me?” Damian asks. “You may have left some clues.”

“That I was going to propose.”

“I didn’t.”

“But you-”

“I love you.” Damian leans forwards, still on one knee, and grabs Tim’s hand. He pulls Tim close, and slips the ring on his finger. “I had no idea you had the same idea.”

Tim drops to his knees beside Damian. The floor is cold on his bare legs.

“I had a whole plan,” Tim says. “It was very romantic.”

“Me too.”

Tim takes Damian’s left hand. The ring looks perfect there; it’s a wide gold band with a carved jade lozenge that matches Damian’s eyes.

He remembers his father bringing it back from a trip to China. They had a seventeenth century japanned case in the entrance hall full of jade work that probably shouldn’t have left its country of origin. When his parents were away Tim would spend the empty hours going through their collections to feel closer to them, carefully unlocking the case and handling each artefact with gloved fingers. The ring was antique, but twentieth century; almost brand new by his parents’ standards. It didn’t belong in the case with the Shou Dynasty buttons, and Tim was fascinated by it.

And then his parents had a dig in Syria, and the case was moved to their bedroom and filled with Babylonian fertility ritual objects. Stone dildos.

As soon as the wedding started crystallising in his minds eyes, he knew Damian would have this ring. It was a part of his life, a part of being Tim Drake, that had been waiting for Damian to join him, like an old key waiting for a lock.

He lifts Damian’s hand to his mouth and kisses the ring.

When he looks up Damian’s eyes are on the ring. They flick to Tim’s hand and back, and his smile falters.

“This is perfect,” Damian says.

“I had a speech,” Tim says. “I’ve still got the notecards if you want to read them.”

Damian sighs. “I couldn’t find something perfect. I tried.”

Tim’s ring is tungsten. Three small diamonds are embedded in the band in a row. They catch the muted bedroom light like a constellation of tiny stars.

“It’s beautiful,” Tim says. 

He loves the way it looks on his hand, masculine but delicate. Maybe he wouldn’t have picked it out himself, but that’s the joy of any gift, something you wouldn’t have bought yourself.

“I was waiting for a… a sign. A moment. A feeling.” Damian twists the ring on Tim’s hand a full 360 degrees. It turns easily, but doesn’t feel loose. “Dick said I was focusing on the wrong thing.”

“You talked to Dick about this?”

Damian frowns. “This isn’t a secret. I won’t elope, Tim.”

“Oh god no,” Tim says. “No, I don’t want that either. When did you go ring shopping with Dick?”

“Earlier today,” Damian says. “I’m glad he pushed me to make a decision now. Did you discuss your plans with him?”

“No, I didn’t tell anyone.”

“If you don’t care for it, there were other options. I narrowed it down as best I could, but I understand from pop culture that there’s supposed to be a _spark_ and Dick said it was probably because I didn’t drink the ridiculous beverage he provided to keep my blood sugar up and I didn’t want him to think my indecision over the ring was indecision over my- my _decision_. But I asked the jeweller to keep the others, in case you prefer a more traditional metal, or different gems, or no gems, or-”

Tim laughs and pulls Damian close, silencing him with a kiss. It tastes of cocoa and toothpaste.

“I love you,” Tim says. “I feel the spark.”

“You do?”

Tim nods. “I mean, you could have slipped a gummy ring on my hand and it would be perfect, but I don’t have to worry about this one melting.”

“Don’t tease.”

Tim leans up to press his lips to Damian’s forehead. 

“Do you know what I picture when I look at this ring?” His lips tickle Damian’s brow, skating over his frown and smoothing it out. “I look at it shine, and picture how it’s going to sparkle as I sign my name, how it’s going to click against the pen, those little rays of refracted light across the paper. It makes me picture signing a marriage licence with you.”

Damian is still on one knee. Tim slips one arm around his shoulders and the other under the crook of Damian’s bended knee. He gets his own feet under him and heaves. Damian’s caught off balance and falls comfortably against Tim’s chest.

Though Damian is taller, broader and heavier than Tim, he’s still lighter than the maximum weight Tim knows he can carry, and he’s not a dead weight. He puts an arm around Tim’s neck and rests his head on Tim’s shoulder.

Tim carries him out of the bedroom, turns on his heel, and carries him back in.

He lowers Damian onto the mattress.

“I love you, Damian Al Ghul Wayne Drake.”

“I love you, ya amar.”

“Fi sarir alzawjia.”

Damian’s grin turns wolfish. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of Tim’s boxers and pulls him down on top of him. He’s still fully dressed, and Tim relaxes down on top of him, Damian’s pants rough against his bare thighs. Damian parts his legs and lets Tim settle between them.

This is it. This is their bed.

No creepy old man watching them.

No family member’s about to walk in on them.

No employees demanding their attention.

No Titans with superhearing in the next room.

Tim slips his tongue between Damian’s lips, and when Damian parts his mouth for him, lets him in, lets him take control, and Tim wants to moan at the relief of having Damian, finally, he doesn’t have to swallow it down.

Damian reacts immediately to the soft sound of pleasure escaping Tim’s throat. His hands come up to grasp Tim’s buttocks and he grinds up against him, his cock hardening in his pants.

Tim groans again, louder, because he can, and because it makes Damian’s eyelids flutter and his hips stutter up. A flush rises up Damian’s skin, emerging from his collar and colonising his cheeks and forehead. A sheen of perspiration breaks out and when Tim looks into Damian’s eyes he can see how wide his pupils are.

Tim nips at Damian’s bottom lip.

“I’m going to make you come in your pants, baby bat,” he says. “And then I’m going to make you come again, and again. Like the first time.”

“You’re not too tired? You were asleep not so long ago,” Damian says.

“I’ve got a second wind,” Tim promises him. “All that proposal adrenaline.”

“You didn’t even propose,” Damian says.

“You didn’t propose either.”

“I went down on one knee.”

“Well,” Tim says, “how about I go down on you, is that a fair trade?”

Damian groans.

“Damian, will you marry me? Legally? In front of all our friends and family, at the Gotham City Art Gallery, with a standing reception and a string quartet and-”

Damian cuts him off with a kiss.

“Timothy Jackson Drake, I will marry you. Will you marry me? At the Gotham City Art Gallery, in front of our friends and family, after I have at least finished my undergraduate course so we have plenty of time to plan the menu for our five course sit down meal with a chamber orchestra.”

“A sextet,” Tim says, just to prolong the discussion so he can revel in the fact they’re talking about planning their wedding. “And yes, I will marry you.”

“Even if it’s several years before the event takes place?”

“A long engagement sounds perfect.”

They seal it with a kiss, and then another, and more until Tim is writhing on top of Damian and Damian’s whimpering beneath him. Tim licks Damian’s jaw, tongue scraping over the five o’clock shadow growing there, and nips at the curve of his neck. He tastes of sweat and soap and he’s so undeniably masculine that Tim’s half horny and half jealous of him, and wholly smug that this alpha male is completely under his command.

He works his way down Damian’s neck and along the line of his collar, sucking hickeys into the already red flesh. When he reaches the centre where the points of Damian’s collar come together presses his lips to the bulge of Damian’s adam’s apple, putting just enough pressure on it to force Damian to swallow, before moving to Damian’s top button and popping it open with his tongue.

He’s disappointed to find that Damian’s got an undershirt on as well. He can’t take that off hands free - not as easily, anyway - but it’s almost see-through with sweat and it clings to Damian’s abs. Damian’s whole chest is heaving as he gasps, hands tangled in the sheets.

“Are you going to come for me, baby bat?” Tim asks, shuffling down the bed to grip the bottom of Damian’s undershirt with his teeth and pull it out from where it’s tucked into his pants. Damian arches his back, letting Tim push it up until it’s bunched under his armpits, and Tim can nose it out of the way to wrap his lips around Damian’s nipple and suck.

“I will, I will,” Damian promises.

Damian’s nipple is right red and swollen under Tim’s ministrations. He turns his attention to the left one. “Are you going to come without touching yourself?” he asks Damian’s pec.

“Yes, ya amar.”

Damian’s voice is wrecked and breathy, but Tim can tell he’s not on the edge yet. He laves his tongue over Damian’s throbbing nipple and pulls back to admire his work. Damian’s shirts frame his chest, skin red-gold and shining, curls of black hair quivering with each short pant. Damian’s hands are tangled so deep in the sheets that when he tries to reach for Tim he can’t get free.

Maybe he should have gone for the bed with more restraint hoops. Damian presents an incredible picture straining against the grey sheets, Tim the only man in the world who can give him what he needs right now.

Tim reaches for the hem of Damian’s undershirt and pulls the front of it up over Damian’s head. It bares his whole chest but, wrapped around his dress shirt, restrains the movement of Damian’s arms further. Damian keens and wriggles.

“Tell me what you’re going to do to me,” he begs.

“I’m going to make you come,” Tim says. “I’m going to make you come in your slacks, and I’m going to do it without laying a single finger on your cock.”

Damian throws his head back and presses his cheek against the soft cotton of the sheets.

Tim slips a hand into his shorts and takes a firm grip on his erection. It’s so good to be here and not have to imagine it, to take himself in hand with the object of his desires actually present, but just as pliable as any fantasy.

He resettles himself between Damian’s legs, forcing his lover to spread himself a little wider, to accommodate him.

“I’m going to sit here,” Tim says, “and I’m going to look at you, and I’m going to come on you. Would you like that?”

“Yes!”

“I’ve been thinking of you every night, baby bat. Picturing you, just like this, in our marital bed. So desperate and needy for me, so beautiful laid out on the sheets. Lying in that little single bed with my hand in my pyjamas, jerking myself off like a teenager.”

“I, also,” Damian gasps.

Tim pushes his shorts down so his cock springs free. “Look at me, baby bat.”

Damian obeys, and Tim’s dick twitches in his hand.

“I’d dream of you, too, even after jerking off. So pent up,” Tim goes on. “I’d wake up, sheets stiff with cum, and end up hard again wondering if you were thinking about me too.” 

He runs his thumb over the head of his cock, gathering the beading precum. He leans forwards and smears it down the centre of Damian’s stomach, dipping into Damian’s navel and out again, right down to Damian’s pants. The tent in them has pulled the waistband lower, so a couple of dark, curly hairs peak out.

“I pictured us here, in bed together. Pictured you coming. Pictured you In the shower room, jerking you off under the water until you came on against the tiles. Pictured you in the kitchen, trying to make me breakfast while I sucked you off quickly before work. Pictured you on the sofa, watching a moved together while I ride your lap, slow and easy.”

Damian shudders. His head rolls around on his neck like he wants to bury his face in the sheets again, but Tim told him to watch, so he keeps his gaze on Tim’s cock. The worship in his eyes makes Tim thrust up into his own hand.

“I pictured our wedding,” Tim says. His own words take him by surprise, but he can’t hold himself back. “You’re in something from [Ahsan’s groomswear collection](https://pkvogue.com/ahsans-menswear-groom-collection-at-pantene-bridal-couture-week-2017/groom-dresses/), black and gold and heavily embroidered, and [I’m in a suit by Alexander McQueen](https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2017-menswear/alexander-mcqueen#collection).” He swallows. “I know a thawb would be closer to what we wore in Turkey, but some of the sherwani would be so flattering on you.”

He grips his cock, eyes on the writing teen beneath him but gaze on an unpicked date in the future.

“We’ll keep the ceremony simple. The quartet - the orchestra - can play us in and out. Lots of candlelight. I don’t care about the risk of open flames in an art gallery; we can cover the insurance costs. I want to watch you glitter. I want to see you glow, Damian, like in Turkey.”

He’s pumping his cock faster and faster now, staring down at Damian. He reaches out with his free hand and trails his fingers over Damian’s stomach, watching the skin twitch beneath his touch, leaving trails in the sweat. Damian’s cock is leaking so much precum the damp spot has soaked right through the front of his pants.

“I want to dance with you, Damian. I want them all standing around the edges of the room while the music plays and it’s just us in the middle, staring into each other’s eyes. I want a long first dance, I want it to last forever, pressed close to you, moving with you. I want to feed you cake from my fingers, pour you wine from my glass and taste it on your lips. I want to see no one but you even when there’s two hundred eyes on us. I want to make promises to you that everyone will hold us to. Vows. I want to say ‘I do’ to every question you… ever… ask…”

He comes, ‘I do’ still on his lips. His cum splashes across Damian’s stomach. Damian bucks beneath him, filling his underwear and forcing pearls of cum through the zipper of his fly.

Tim takes a moment to catch his breath, looking down at the beautiful mess they’ve made together. Damian looks stunned, breath still coming in desperate pants that make Tim’s cum roll and drip across his sweat-slick torso. He jerks one arm weakly, caught in sheets and shirts.

“I want to touch you, ya amar,” Damian says weakly. “Free me.”

Tim gulps down another couple of mouthfuls of air. He reaches down and untangles Damian from the sheets, helps him sit up and eases his dress shirt down his arms and his undershirt over his head. He shuffles back and undoes Damian’s pants, peels them down his long, lean legs, pressing kisses to Damian’s muscled thighs as he goes.

Slowly, eventually, they’re both naked. Tim knows he should take the clothes to the laundry hamper, but Damian puts a large hand around his upper arm and pulls gently, encouraging Tim into the bed beside him.

The bed is large enough for Damian to shuffle over and neither of them have to lie in the wet spot.

Damian rolls onto his side and pulls Tim against him, so Tim head rests on his arm and his back is against Damian’s chest. Being the little spoon isn’t a complete novelty for Tim, but he’s not normally been one for post-coital cuddling. Damian makes a satisfied noise, stretching his legs out so his feet curl under Tim’s and there isn’t a inch of them that isn’t touching.

“I owe you a blow job,” Tim says, though his earlier tiredness is catching up with him again.

“In the morning.” Damian nuzzles the back of Tim’s head. “We can take our pleasure at our leisure, rohi.”

Tim yawns. “Ana bahebak,” he mumbles.

“Ana bahebak. Dream sweetly of our wedding, and tell me of it when we wake.”

“Have the gazpacho shots and ceasar salad gel from Shoots as hors d'oeuvres,” Tim says sleepily. “French champagne for cocktail hour, if we can find a vegetarian supplier.”

“We are going to find ourselves with a very specific kink, ya hayati,” Damian says with a chuckle. “Bahlem feek.”

“Red and black and gold and green are our colours...”

Tim isn’t sure when he stops talking and starts dreaming, but Damian’s arms are around him and maybe they’re sleeping or maybe they’re dancing, but either way it’s perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My husband and I had a surprise mutual proposal. It's very hard to get someone's ring size subtly, you know! I pulled out a ring, he answered by doing the same... it was very romantic :)


	44. In which they finally go on their first date

It’s barely a week until Damian starts college. After some debate, he’s decided not to live on campus. Maybe he is missing out on The College Experience, but he’s still giddy to be living with Tim. Damian makes breakfast and prepares lunch for Tim to take to work, and they alternate making dinner (or calling for take out - neither of them cook well). They have a cleaning rota that seems to be working, especially since Tim purchased a small fleet of roombas. 

And Tim has made good on his promises: slow morning sex in bed and quick blowjobs in the kitchen, gentle handjobs in the shower and rough rides on the sofa. There’s a discrete cabinet in the bedroom that’s gathering a small supply of beautiful objects that feel amazing in and around orifices, and Damian’s self portrait hangs on the wall surrounded by Tim’s boudoir photographs.

Even so, Damian’s favourite part of the day is when they walk Titus together in the evenings. San Francisco is beautiful in the early evening light, in that period between everyone returning home from work and before the night comes to life. They have their best conversations as they walk, hand in hand. 

They vary the route, but they’ve been caught by the paparazzi a few times. It’s interesting watching the story break, the gossip bloggers speculating wildly while the big fish are still circling. Vale’s made a couple of feints at Bruce, trying to get his reaction before she goes in for the kill, and Cat Grant has announced a series of profiles of the Wayne family that promises a scandal in every chapter.

He’s been splitting his summer between the Titans and Drake Industries. He’s been putting an intern programme together for Tim, drawing on his experience at Wayne Enterprises, and to his own surprise he’s enjoyed the work. It’s a much smaller business, but he’s been working with Tam to set up a programme that would include working in both offices, accommodation provided, in order to provide a wider spread of experience, and several East and West Coast universities have already expressed interest in including DI among their organisations that count for credit. There won’t be any interns until next summer, so Damian’s last summer project is finding his own replacement, an assistant who’ll provide an appropriate level of support while still showing enough backbone to send Tim home to Damian at the end of the day.

He’s got a dozen phone interviews scheduled tomorrow, then Tim and Tam, who’s flying out, will do in person interviews next week, while Damian is being forced to undergo ‘freshman orientation’.

What if college _is_ like high school? What if he’s bored? What if his peers think he’s unpleasant and difficult to get on with? What if he’s committed to spending his time biting his tongue and keeping his temper and what if it all come out when he’s at home with Tim?

While they were walking Titus he worked up the nerve to share his concerns with Tim. Tim had squeezed his hand and told him that college was different, and if it wasn’t, he could transfer to a different school. Damian’s an adult (and one of rather more significant means than his peers, which means things like loans and fees aren’t a concern) and changing his mind isn’t a sign of weakness.

It’s a minor revelation, and Damian keeps turning it over in his mind.

“I haven’t even started yet. I shouldn’t be contemplating retreat already.”

“It’s not retreat. It’s a back up plan. A safety net, to borrow a circus metaphor from Dick. This isn’t the league, Damian, not everything is do or die. When you have an end you want to reach, which is the better plan: a straightforward list of directions, or a map that shows all of the possible routes?”

“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”

In the training room, Damian prepares his team mates for his reduced availability by pitting them against each other, speed versus strength, imagination versus magic, engineering versus ingenuity. It’a a good lesson in why a strong team values diversity, and a chance to revel in every way his adult life is different to his childhood. Cooperation versus competition. 

“Are you excited about tonight?” Jon asks him afterwards in the boy’s showers.

“Tonight?” Jai glances over at them.

“I have a date with Tim,” Damian says. “And I am looking forward to it, yes.”

“You live together,” Jai says. “You can have sex whenever you like, you don’t have to try and impress each other any more.”

“The point of a date is not to stun and bamboozle the other person into accepting your sexual overtures,” Damian says sternly. “It is time you’ve both set aside to… to... “

“To remind yourselves why you’re so impressed with each other?” Jon suggests.

“That’s not a date,” Jai says, wrinkling his nose, “that’s a date _night_. Like my parents have. How are you such an old married couple already?”

“I think it’s sweet.” Jon rubs shampoo into his hair until lather trickles down his face and he uses his heat vision to pop the bubbles before they get in his eyes. “With everything else it’s not like you guys have had much time to do stuff like this.”

“We’ve never ‘done stuff’ like this,” Damian admits. He turns his shower off and runs his hands through his hair to squeeze out the excess water. “This is our first date.”

“The heck? Seriously?” Jai blinks are him through the steam. “But you live together!”

“It was a leap of faith. But now things have calmed down a little, we’re covering some of the bases we were forced to miss.” Damian’s eyes flick to Jon. “Don’t say you think it’s sweet again,” he warns.

“I was going to say cute this time,” Jon says. “Have you picked out an outfit?”

“Seriously? You really sound like my mom now. Do you have a special pair of heels too? That you’ll always be carrying by the time you come home because you don’t wear heels often enough any more, not like some of those women in the PTA, you just don’t know how they do it?”

Damian can’t decide if the Wests’ relationship is tragic or something to aspire to. Their marriage has lasted significantly longer than any of his family’s partnerships, after all.

He does have a pair of boots he’s planning to wear. Tim likes how his Robin boots lace up, so he’s acquired a knee high civilian pair. He hasn’t had an opportunity to break them in properly, so there’s always a chance he might end up carrying them home, like Linda West.

“Where are you going?” Jon asks as he holds out a hand, not willing to leave the hot water until a towel is secured. Damian wraps one around his own waist and hands another to Jon. Jai always takes the longest, some kind of rebellion growing up in a household of speedsters. Damian and Jon stay just out of reach of the spray, but don’t leave for the changing room.

“We have a reservation at Atelier Crenn.”

“Fancy.”

It’s going to be romantic and elegant and _public_. It makes Damian’s blood effervesce. Everyone will see what good care he takes of Tim.

“They’ve confirmed they can provide a vegetarian menu for both of us.”

“I didn’t think Tim was vegetarian too?”

“He’s not. Well, not officially.” 

Damian had expected Tim to be excited to dine on meat again. Of course, they don’t have any in their shared meals, and Damian prefers not to cook with it even when he’s preparing Tim’s lunches, but he wouldn’t object if Tim wanted to keep a little ham in the refrigerator or some of that candy that has gelatin in. Tim has been conscientious in his grocery purchasing, even more than Damian sometimes is and certainly better than his other siblings. Even three michelin stars doesn’t seem to be offering much in the way of temptation, though Damian has to admit curiosity about some of the seafood dishes.

He’s never considered himself the swooning type, but when Tim spoke so casually to the maitre d’ about two vegetarian menus Damian had wanted to propose to him all over again.

“Oh god, he’s right,” Jai says, finally emerging from the spray. “You _are_ cute.”

Damian opens his mouth to argue that any flush Jai might have observed to reach that conclusion was due to his overlong shower, but no words come out. He’s smiling too much to articulate a convincing lie.

#

“Ra’s, I swear, I’m not joking around.”

It’s not what Damian wants to hear on entering the cave.

“Did you, or did you not, kill that couple?”

Damian can’t hear his grandfather’s reply. Tim has a phone pressed to his ear and he’s striding around the cave like his every footstep is a boot planted on Ra’s face.

“Don’t- Did you have them killed? Are you in any way whatsoever connected with their deaths? Because it was a waste of resources, Ra’s. We’re not taking the date.”

“I know what we said, but that was under duress.”

“I did tell you it would take longer than a year to secure the perfect wedding.”

“The word you’re looking for is Groomzilla, and I will _own_ it, Ra’s. I swear to you, I will.”

“I don’t care.”

“I really don’t care.”

“No.”

“No! This isn’t a democracy, Ra’s. It’s our wedding, and we will have it the way we want, when we want. Which is not next fucking week!”

Tim hits his thumb against the toughened glass repeatedly.

“God, I miss landlines. You could hang up with dramatic emphasis on a landline, properly slam the handset down.”

“You could throw it against the wall,” Damian suggests.

“No, it’s my work phone. Tam would disapprove.”

Tim sighs. He puts both hands on the back of the sofa and leans on it, staring at the blank television. Damian drops his bag on the floor and comes up behind him, wrapping one arm around his waist and the other around his chest. Tim melts against him.

“Groomzilla, ya amar?”

“Ugh. The entire wedding industry is predicated on telling people they should have what they want and then shaming them for daring to ask for it. And I know as a man I have it easier than a bride does, but it’s still so hard to navigate and we’re not even _planning_ yet.”

Damian snorts. “Really, my love?”

“Fantasising is different. And if I happen to have reached out for a few quotes, and to get an idea of availability, it’s just to furnish the fantasy. I wouldn’t commit to anything without you.” Tim turns in Damian’s arms and looks up at him. “You know that, right?”

“I know.” Damian kisses Tim’s forehead. “What did grandfather want?”

Tim buries his face in Damian’s chest.

“Okay,” he says. “So. Okay, so. A while back. Okay, so a while back, your grandfather emailed me to bug me about wedding stuff, and I went on the Art Gallery website to make a point about waiting lists, and because I knew he’d check I emailed the events team. That’s the only reason. And I forgot I’d even done it, because it was a while back. I’m not planning a wedding without you, I swear.”

Damian slides a hand between them and tilts Tim’s face up so he can look into Tim’s eyes.

“How long ago is ‘a while back’?” 

“Before we moved in here. Not long before! Just before.” Tim blushes. “I know it makes me sound crazy that I was sending out enquiries for venues before we even got engaged but it really was just to get Ra’s off our backs and before I started genuinely considering the gallery. And their waiting list is long enough that we’re not going get a date until after you finish college anyway, so it’s not a bad thing I already got in touch, but now a spot has freed up and they called me and there’s no way we’re that close to the top of the waiting list and I think Ra’s took my email as a request to have a couple of complete strangers killed.”

“But he denied it?”

Tim nods.

“I’ve tried to find out more about the circumstances. The coroner’s report says it was a car accident, but that’s easy enough for someone like Ra’s to arrange.”

“It is, but in my experience grandfather rarely turns down an opportunity to take credit for his work. He’s too arrogant to allow you to doubt him.”

“Perhaps.”

“And the timing isn’t ideal. Grandfather gave us a year.”

“He did.”

“This isn’t your fault, ya amar.”

“I need to contact everyone who has bookings for next spring, arrange protection for them.”

“That might be wise,” Damian concedes. “But we do not have to do it tonight. We have plans, tonight.”

“We do, baby bat.” Tim grins at him, bouncing up on his toes to kiss Damian. “First we got married, then we got engaged, and now we’re going on our first date!”

Damian tightens his arms around Tim and kisses him back, pressing him against the back of the sofa until Tim starts to bend backwards.

“Do we have time…” Damian runs a hand up Tim’s side, sliding under his shirt to trail his fingers up Tim’s ribs.

Tim squirms under his touch.

“I need to shower, and traffic is terrible at this time of day, and… and…”

Damian scoops Tim up in his arms.

“I need to shower too,” he lies.

#

They’re only ten minutes late and Damian doesn’t see what the problem is, but Tim snarls at other drivers on the road for getting in his way, and parks with furious efficiency. He slams the car door and strides up the road towards the restaurant at a pace that requires Damian to chase him, even with his much longer legs.

“They’ll hold the reservation,” Damian says when he catches up.

“That’s not the point.”

“It isn’t some fast food joint, that needs to turn the table over. The amount we’re going to spend there is worth ten minutes of their time.”

“It’s rude, Damian!” Tim is white lipped and pink cheeked, and it’s not the bay wind that’s brought colour to his cheeks. 

His husband is embarrassed, Damian realises. It’s utterly baffling.

“They won’t know why.”

Tim just stares at him. Damian remains baffled.

Tim has himself mostly under control when they enter the restaurant, hands his jacket over to the boy and maintains a pleasant facade until they’re seated in a corner under a light fitting that looks like an oversized sheaf of wheat. They are handed menus in the form of poems.

Tim worries his bottom lip with his teeth and breathes audibly through his nose. Damian resists the urge to speak, though his own ire is rising. This is their first date. It’s supposed to be pleasant and entertaining. The shower had been fun - Tim had enjoyed it just as much as Damian, had been just as enthusiastic - but somehow it has made everything sour now and he doesn’t understand why. He hates not understanding, hates that there’s some unspoken rule he’s broken and Tim won’t even tell him what it is and it makes him feel like a child again.

Damian swallows. There’s heat rising inside of him and it’s not fair and it’s Tim’s fault and he’s scared he’s going to end up making a scene and that’s going to make everything ten times worse.

“I don’t like being late.” Tim finally breaks his silence. “People think you value your own time over theirs.”

“Our time _is_ more valuable than theirs.”

“It’s not!” Tim drops his gaze to the cloth and brings it back again, blue eyes bright. “It’s not financial value, or, or, or anything else. It’s about respect. Being late is being disrespectful.”

“Bay area traffic is disrespectful, then.”

“We should have left earlier. I wanted to leave earlier.”

“Ya amar, we are here. Everything is fine. No one is angry at us. We will make up for any slight inconvenience we have caused by tipping well.” Damian pauses. He’s still frustrated, still feels like Tim is holding him to a secret standard Damian can’t hope to reach, but some of the pinched look is receding from Tim’s face and Damian doesn’t want to provoke a fight. He swallows his pride; a little of it, at least. “I am sorry we did not leave earlier.”

Tim sighs. “I’m sorry too. I lost track of time as much as you did, and it’s not as though I didn’t enjoy myself. I just hate being late, Damian. My parents always used to swan into galas long after they started and everyone would stare and gossip and they thought we were so rude. I don’t like being the centre of attention, and especially not like that.”

Some of the pressure in Damian’s chest eases. “I understand. I will do everything in my power to ensure you are never in that position again.” He reaches across the table and takes his husband’s hands. “I didn’t know it would make you so uncomfortable.”

Half a smile tugs falteringly at Tim’s lips. “Well,” he says, “this is our first date, isn’t it? This is the time to learn things about each other.”

It’s clear there’s still some tension in the air, but it’s not so much between them any more as it is hanging over Tim alone. Damian rubs his thumb over Tim’s knuckles.

“Tell me something else,” he says.

“Something else?”

“As part of our first date. Tell me something else I don’t know about you.”

The smile gains a foothold on Tim’s face, and though it’s a shy, timid little thing, it is real and warm and makes Damian smile back.

Before he can reply two egg-shaped amuse bouches appear. They are frozen apple cider, in a cocoa butter shell with cassis gel. The waiter explains in mellifluous tones how to devour it in a single mouthful before politely retreating.

It’s delivered without a single touch of reproach, but Tim still manages to look apologetic. It is of little concern to Damian, who knows precisely how much respect he deserves and will not brook an ounce less. There is not an individual in this building who can match his bloodline, his skill, his intelligence or his social standing - Tim excluded - and if he prioritises intimate time with his lover over the chef’s schedule then the chef will have to wait for him.

He keeps this thought to himself, though, and focuses on the little globe. He tips the globule into his mouth and bursts it with his tongue, sharp, sweet liquid exploding bright and fresh over his palate. His appetite is duly whetted.

“I like Enya,” Tim says suddenly. “Her music is relaxing and unchallenging and easy to work to, and the Lord of the Rings soundtrack is probably my most listened to album. And if you ever tell Kon I’ll lie about it, because I don’t think I can take being followed around by him singing Orinoco Flow off key again. He did it for months.”

“I have no idea who Enya is,” Damian says.

“She was in Clannad. Who you also don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” Tim fiddles with his napkin. “It’s something you didn’t know about me. Your turn.”

“Do you have any of her work on your ipod? You could introduce me to it on the return journey.”

“No, not my car one. I can probably stream something from Spotify, though.” Tim looks up at Damian through his lashes. “Something calming might be good while I’m driving.”

Neither of them are drinking tonight - Damian offered to drive, so Tim might, but they only have Tim’s car in San Francisco and Damian knows better than to demand the wheel.

“I like your driving,” Damian says. “You are masterful behind the wheel, and your experience and training manifest even when your temper frays.”

“I can honestly say no one has ever said they like being my passenger before, baby bat. Not even my dad when he didn’t have a choice.”

“Well, that is something you don’t know about me.”

“I’m not sure that counts.”

Damian leans back in his chair, pursing his lips. Tim has known him for a more significant proportion of his life than he has known Tim for Tim’s, so to speak. He doesn’t want to dwell on his childhood, nor their fraught period of siblinghood, which leaves more recent events, and Tim has played a pivotal role in most of those.

“I do not like not knowing the rules,” Damian says slowly. “I am comfortable breaking rules when it suits me, or when they don’t suit me, but the sensation that there is something everyone else knows being held over me is discomforting, for similar reasons to your dislike of being late.”

Tim considers this. “Is this mainly social conventions, or in general? Like if we were playing a game?”

“Only if you were using my lack of familiarity against me, allowing me to get myself into positions based on assumptions about the game’s rules and then using my ignorance to beat me.” It was a common tactic in league training, to keep the mind agile. Give you a weapon that would crumble after a few uses, or change from a one on one battle to a melee. Loss was not an option. Failure was death.

“You always hated ‘the floor is lava’.” He can see Tim searching his memories, looking for evidence to support Damian’s statement, pulling disparate clues together.

Damian pouts. “The rules are asinine and Grayson changes them to suit himself.”

“And earlier, when I was distressed about being late but didn’t explain why, that upset you too?”

“Yes. But I kept my temper.” 

He’s proud of that, and he’s not going to pretend he isn’t. From the smoothing of the crease between Tim’s eyes, he believes his lover is proud of him also.

More food comes out - puffed black rice and grapefruit tea, oyster leaves on a sake and elderflower gel, spring vegetables in a pea broth - and they keep going back and forth. Tim prefers kittens to puppies, but dogs to cats. Damian likes his chocolate very dark, or completely white, but not milk, and he finds the inclusion of peanut butter confusing. On his tenth birthday, Tim’s parents held a dinner party for their friends and neighbours; Bruce brought Jason and Tim spent the entire evening in a state of awed hero worship that left the adult guests bemused. Damian’s earliest memory is the first time he saw a television, in the window of a store while his mother was shopping; the Justice League had saved the world and he’d scoffed at their showy attire, leaving his mother in peals of laughter in the middle of the market.

Tim’s mood continues to swing, and eventually, as conversation ebbs, Damian realises he’s going to have to confront it.

They have a small loaf of bread between them with a herb butter, decorated with edible flower. He serves his lover a slice.

“I like flowers,” Damian says. “Garnishes are an indulgence that adds nothing to the nutritional value, and I ought to eschew it, but I find myself appreciating nasturtiums not only for the peppery counterpoint, but also their aesthetics.”

“We could try growing some,” Tim says. “Alfred will know what will grow well in the cave.”

“I would like that.”

“Would you like them at the-” Tim breaks off and stares at the wall.

“The wedding? Yes. I would.”

“I’ll make a note on the planning doc.” Tim’s voice is flat, none of the joy he usually gets when he’s contemplating their nuptials. Of course, he’s also not riding Damian’s cock right now, which might be contributing to his lack of enthusiasm. They’re definitely developing their own personal fetish for planning.

“This is about grandfather, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean, ‘this’?”

Damian gestures. “Your… mood. He has soured it.”

“I’m fine.”

“It is understandable,” Damian says.

“It’s not! This is supposed to be a Ra’s free evening. And _I_ called  <>him. I couldn’t leave it alone, not even until tomorrow. I invoked him, and now he’s here between us. No wonder Bruce doesn’t trust me. I don’t trust me.”

Tim has torn his bread into crumbs, which are sticking to his fingers with butter. Damian hands over his napkin.

Tim stares down at the mess he’s made.

“I love you. I wanted tonight to be perfect. And I can barely concentrate because I’m seeing Ra’s in everything. Even the waiters; ever since the sommelier from Roots turned up in the cave city I’m seeing assassins everywhere.”

“There are assassins everywhere,” Damian reminds him gently. “I’m one of them. This is a small establishment; grandfather couldn’t just sneak someone onto the staff that easily.”

But something niggles in the back of his mind, and he understands why Tim is distracted. Their waiter is the same gender and race as the sommelier from Roots, but his eyes are a different colour, his hair is a different texture, and he’s more than an inch taller and at least ten pounds lighter.

But his voice…

Damian waves over another member of staff.

“Anything I can do for you?”

“Our waiter, how long has he worked here?”

“Alonso? Two years. He’s actually one of our more recent hires!”

“Thank you, that’s reassuring. He has a very pleasant voice. May I have a fresh napkin?”

Tim has stayed silent throughout the exchange, but after the Damian has been supplied with new linen he offers up a shy smile.

“Thank you. For taking me seriously.”

“I will always take your concerns seriously, ya amar.”

“I know.”

Tim reaches over and takes Damian’s hand. His fingers brush the ring he gave Damian.

It is a perfect first date.

#

He watches the young couple closely. They are clearly very much in love, paying more attention to each other than the excellent food. They find ways to stay in constant physical contact, whether it’s holding hands across the table or playing footsie under it. Their gazes are locked on each other, and even when they are engrossed in serious conversation one or other of them is usually smiling, just at the pleasure of being in each other’s company.

Bruce leans back in his seat, resisting the urge to scratch where his fake beard meets his real stubble. He’s had a pleasant evening. Good food, no supervillains, no ninjas, no fights. He’s never seen Tim and Damian spend so long in each other’s company without attempting to injure each other. He knew it was possible - has had every member of his family recount occasions they saw it to him, like it was the lack of personal oversight that was causing his doubt - but he had assumed on some level that an outside force must be required, like a college professor or assassin attack.

He regrets that he wasn't able to get a table close enough to hear them. He can't see their faces well from this angle, not when they lean in to each other, but he catches snatches of phrases. He recognises one of Tim's anecdotes about his childhood; he remembers Jason, afterwards, scrunching his nose up and asking him why a kid's parents would hold a party on his birthday that wasn't a birthday party, and not being able to answer him. Tim Drake had slipped from his notice shortly afterwards, until the child genius forced himself back into Bruce's life. Bruce can only read Damian's reaction from his body language; his shoulders edge towards his ears, his torso angles towards Tim's, his legs shift so they're bracketing Tim's. If there wasn't a table between them, Bruce is willing to bet Damian would have taken Tim into his arms.

They’re… sweet, together.

It won’t always be like this between them, he knows that, but that it can be like this between them starts to make him wonder if this is what he’s been missing.

They're both wearing rings. He understood Ra's had provided an engagement ring for Tim - he broke into Gotham National Bank to steal it form Tim's safety deposit box and run it through checks at the cave, before returning it - but these are new. Or rather, Tim's is. Damian's is a vintage ring Bruce recalls from the Drake's entrance hall. He wonders if they've eloped to meet Ra's terms.

The thought makes him a little sad. He could have been there, if things had gone differently.

Tim pays for their meal while Damian is in the bathroom. At the front of the restaurant, the young man on coat check perks up. He’s had very little to do on this mild late summer evening, and Bruce has noticed his eyes on the diners. He’s been watching Tim and Damian almost as closely as Bruce has, and when Damian returns to the table the staff member flags a colleague down and slips out of his booth.

Bruce drops cash on his table, and exits the restaurant with another couple providing cover.

He finds the coat checker perched on the roof, dart in hand.

Batman drops onto the concrete in front of him, cloak flaring. The drugged dart embeds itself harmlessly into the heavy cape. The assassin lurches backwards, but he grabs him by the front of his shirt and lifts him bodily off the ground.

Voices drift up from the street below them, Damian and Tim debating possible names for Dick’s future child. Their footsteps are in sync on the sidewalk, and even with his back to the street Batman know they’re holding hands.

He remains in position until he hears an engine roar to life, and his sons pull away in Tim’s car.

“Take me to you master,” he growls. “It’s time the Demon’s Head and I _talked_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm breaking for Christmas now, and the final few chapters and epilogues will go up in the New Year (I am Return-of-the-King-ing this thing with epilogues, just fyi!). DC has a massive sale on at comixology, so I've got the first five volumes of Tim "I'm not upset by my mother's death because that's what Batman would want" Drake's Robin run (also starring Bruce "well, he _seems_ fine" Wayne and Alfred "Oh god, we've acquired another one" Pennyworth), as well as Cass's Batgirl run and a bit of Battle for the Cowl because sometimes even I have to acknowledge DC didn't just shut up shop in 2011. So, entertain yourselves, and see you in 2019!
> 
> ETA 12/1/19 - just to say, I'm working on the final few chapters, but I think I want to finish writing everything before I post it (Bruce's PoV is _haaaaard_ , you guys!), so expect updates maybe late January or early Feb, depending on how many epilogues it spawns.


	45. In which the in-laws confront each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was not expecting the random sommelier I threw into Partition to just keep popping up over and over like this. He might even deserve an OC tag at this point...

It’s a long flight to Turkey. The coat checker Bruce took prisoner awoke shortly after they passed over the East Coast. Bruce strapped him down in the back of the BatJet, but with another ten hours to go it’s not a perfect solution. At least the man is quiet.

Bruce passes the time working through his logs of Tim and Damian’s activity over the last twenty four hours. For the first time since their betrayal, he feels a twinge of guilt over the activity, but he can’t go to Ra’s unprepared.

_“I did tell you it would take longer than a year to secure the perfect wedding.”_

_“My dear Detective, your passion for perfection is one of the traits that makes you worthy of marrying into my dynasty, but ultimately, will the trappings really make a difference? As long as you end the day legally bound, is it not a success? Your need to exercise control over the consumerist fripperies gives an impression of a coward covering his insecurities in bows and bouquets. Or a shallow dandy. Or a petty tyrant-”_

_“The word you’re looking for is Groomzilla, and I will own it, Ra’s. I swear to you, I will.”_

_“What a quaint coinage. You would have your ideal wedding at the expense of your reputation, son in law?”_

_“I don’t care.”_

_“It’s not only my good opinion you risk, should you continue down this path.”_

_“I_ really _don’t care.”  
_

Tim’s waspish tone draws a fond chuckle from Bruce. He’s been on the receiving end of it more times than he can count. The assassin in the back startles, robes rustling as his head turns as far as it can in the restraints to stare at him. Batman keeps one eye on the screen that monitors his captive while he scans Tim’s work email account. The young man’s heart rate his elevates, his pupils dilated, and his skin moisture is rising. Batman’s laugh has, apparently, terrified him.

Bruce replays the recording from Tim’s work phone. It’s something of a relief to know they haven’t eloped, though he dislikes the fact that Tim has kept Ra’s more in the loop about their plans than his own family. Bruce could get them Gotham Art Gallery, if that’s what they want. He’d give Tim all the bows and bouquets in the world to draw him back from Ra’s clutches.

He’d give anything to have Tim back, full stop. Back in his office at Wayne Enterprises, berating him in the same tone he used on Ra’s. Back in the real Batcave, tapping away at the computer. Back under his roof, back in the green tights, back by his side.

It’s strange to have the spectre of grandchildren raised. He’s not ready for be a grandfather. He’s not done being a father. And he knows that’s not how that works - he can see Jim’s raised eyebrow as clear as if the older man stood before him - but they’re his babies and he’s not ready for them to have babies of their own. Dick should be prancing across rooftops beside him, not worrying about finding a doula who has experience with patients who use wheelchairs. Jason should be in the mansion’s kitchen, flour smudged across his freckles, not penning letters of complaint about the quality of food at his stepdaughter’s school. Tim and Damian… Tim and Damian should not be planning a wedding, whatever else they ought to be doing.

Cass, his perfect daughter, remains his rock, but only because she’s always been a free spirit, tethered to their home by the lightest of ties, free to come and go as she likes. But like a spiderweb, that gossamer bond is stronger than steel.

He always thought he’d have more time with them all. Time outside of the cape, to talk and play and teach and learn. But they didn’t wait for him - couldn’t wait for him - and now they’re all adults of one kind or another.

He plays the phone call one more time.

He doesn’t bother suppress his laughter, and the assassin behind him squirms in his restraints. Batman waits long enough for the man’s fight or flight reflex to spike and start receding, then turns. The monitors chirp as his foe panics again.

There’s only so much adrenaline available to the human body at any given time, and if you push past that point numb exhaustion sets in. You just want it all to stop. Ra’s did it to Tim, over a long period, but Batman only has hours to work here. Ultimately, no matter how much fear his inspires in the young man before him, they both know Ra’s holds his life in his hands. Batman has to make him forget that.

He tweaks the cockpit lights and draws his shoulders up, so his costume spikes. The cape flares behind him as he stands and turns, and he fills the narrow jet. His silhouette looms over the assassin.

“Malik Ross.”

There’s another spike, but it’s shorter lived. The man is tiring.

“The Demon Head’s most recent poison master. You ascended quickly.”

His eyes are still wide, and sweat slicks his cheeks, but the assassin nods.

“You made a lot of enemies in doing so.”

“I made a lot of corpses.”

Bruce notes the man’s voice. There’s a tremor of nerves in it, but he makes his pronouncement with neither pride nor shame. His matter of fact tone, a slightly upward lilt at the end which dangles like a baited hook, is an attempt to lure Batman down a conversational path of the assassin’s choosing.

This is a man with a deadly tongue in more way than one.

“Your service skills were never truly appreciated by the patrons of the restaurants you worked at, were they? You wanted recognition. You wanted admiration. You wanted to serve someone who knew their Louis de Sacy from their Laurent Perrier, and not those gave an american sparkling wine the misnomer Champagne. And you found your customer in Ra’s, didn’t you?” Batman smirks down at him. “You killed the man he positioned in Roots and took his place. You impressed him by reacting to the changing circumstances, and instead of killing me, you brought him news of Tim and Damian’s flirtation.”

“The plan that Ra’s wrought never included your presence at the restaurant.” The assassin corrects him like the beginning of a bedtime story. “He arranged for the breakout at Arkham, knowing you would put your beloved city above your only son’s birthday.”

The man monologues almost as much as Ra’s. No wonder he’s risen through the ranks so quickly. Bruce suppresses the urge to roll his eyes.

“The day began with-”

“Ra’s has rewarded you by putting you in a prime position to facilitate his scheme,” Bruce interrupts. “It must have galled you to check coats at Atelier Crenn.”

Malik’s full lips twist into a scowl. “They got the table due to a cancellation. There wasn’t time to gain a more suitable position.”

After that, it grows easier to coax the exhausted waiter to talk, his instinct for storytelling that makes him a good sommelier making him an even better informant. Bruce learns as much as the man knows about the scale of Ra’s plans, even if the useful information is dispersed amongst tantalising descriptions of every dish that happened to cross the players’ paths.

Atelier Crenn’s tasting menu grows an ever more distant memory with every passing minute, and Batman’s mystique risks being undermined by a growling stomach. As soon as he has the information he needs, he knocks the man out again, and devours two energy bars.

Ra’s still has his claws in Tim and Damian, more than they realise. Bruce might have failed them as a father, but he’s still Batman, and they’re still Robins. He’s going to save them from Ra’s clutches.

#

Ra’s table groans under the spread he’s laid out for Bruce. It’s all a show - they both know Bruce would never touch a crumb Ra’s offers him - but it fills the room with the heady aroma of exotic spices. Bruce checks the filters on his suit to make sure the scent isn’t covering up something more nefarious, but they are overwhelmed by the vapours of cloves and cardamom and the output reads more like a curry mix than a scientific analysis.

This is the first time he’s had the opportunity to see the Cappadocian palace, though Talia spoke warmly of it when he trained alongside her. There’s a deceptive softness to it compared with Nanda Parbat or Switzerland; these caves are warm and worn smooth by centuries of use, the corners rubbed round by centuries of ghosts. This place has been a home to generations, not a barrack.

Ra’s swirls red wine in a crystal goblet, the candlelight refracting through the liquid to cast ruby shadows across his face.

“I have to admit,” Ra’s says, “I have been anticipating this appointment for some time. You took a longer path to reach me than I expected.”

Bruce refrains from comment.

“They are defying me. The terms of the dowry were clear, and I will not broke defiance.” Ra’s sips his wine. “I will destroy Gotham if it continues.”

“No,” Bruce says, “you won’t.”

“You can’t stop me.”

Bruce sighs. “I won’t need to.”

“So, they’ll be legally wed. Good.” Ra’s drains his cup. Malik - who Bruce kept at his side as he penetrated the palace, in order to hand him over as a way of opening the dialogue without immediate violence - refills Ra’s glass. He eyes Batman warily over Ra’s shoulder, anxious about the information he divulged and the plan Bruce built around it.

Or he disapproves of Bruce’s untouched wine. He’s a shallow wretch, really.

“In their own time.”

“Before the year is out.”

“In their own time, if they so choose.”

“My terms are clear.”

“You won’t keep to them.” Bruce pushes his cowl back. “How long have we known each other, Ra’s? How long have we played this game? Me and Talia, Tim and Damian. You’ve learned from your mistakes.”

Ra’s tilts his head to one side and narrows his gaze. “My mistakes?”

“You drove Talia and I apart by pushing too hard. You showed us how different our worlds were, how irreconcilable our philosophies. You lost your opportunity to make me your heir. You’re not going to do the same to Tim and Damian.”

“I planned further ahead this time, started laying the groundwork further back,” Ra’s acknowledges. “I primed Damian from birth to accept my chosen suitor. Once I selected Timothy, I tested him, I prepared him, I wore him down. By the time I put my proposition to them, they were desperate to accept it.”

“You said I was late. Your plan did not take into account the fact they’d lie to me.”

“Of course it did. I may have had to extend the timeframe to take into account the period in which they lied to themselves, but trust me, Detective, I put plenty of effort in this very room into ensuring that Timothy’s natural instinct for secrecy would become a driving force.”

Bruce believes that. Tim has many wonderful qualities, but there are certain easy to push buttons that still leave him open to manipulation, provided it’s in particular directions. A desperate need to prove himself, too much pride in his own rationality, a crippling fear of rejection. Yes, it would have been easy for Ra’s to toy with him when it comes to something as terrifying as falling in love. For all his intelligence, Tim still lacks life experience. Ra’s has loved and lost. He knows how to open those wounds in others.

Still, he thought Bruce would have come before now, which means he miscalculated. He planned on Tim and Damian lying. He did not plan on Bruce believing them. The rift in the family was meant to take root at an earlier stage.

Sometimes strength manifests in unexpected ways, gives a man power in unexpected situations. He trusted Tim and Damian, he gave them space, and in return, they gave him an edge over Ra’s.

“Instincts can be overridden,” Bruce says. “Humanity's greatest discoveries depend upon it. You demanded a public match in order to drive them to secrecy, but the secret is out now.”

“Ah. You wonder what I have to gain by continuing to press?” Ra’s smiles. “They _want_ it, Detective. They are planning it under your nose.”

“They’re planning it under Phelp’s paint of the old Wayne Enterprises tower,” Bruce says. “They are also planning it for after Damian’s graduation. Your timeframe doesn’t suit them, and you know how stubborn both of them are.”

Ra’s scowls. “You think they would refuse simply to spite me, but you have instilled a code of ethics in them that will not allow them to broke collateral damage. They will marry.”

“Why now, Ra’s? You are eight hundred years old. What is another half decade to you?”

Ra’s laugh is surprisingly bitter. “Do you know what I have learned in my eight hundred years, Detective?” He puts his wine down, rests both elbows on the table and steeples his fingers, leaning forwards to peer over the laden table at Bruce. “Life is short.”

“Not yours.”

“Do you know how many children I’ve had, Detective? Nyssa, Talia, Dusan, you know. Quinlan you knew as Qayin, and Arkady you met in his waning years. But they are only a handful of the offspring I have bestowed upon this world, by nature or nurture. Hundreds of women have placed babes in my arms, hoping I would make them my heir. Dozens more I took from their mothers, in the hope of finding someone worthy of my dynasty. I have been father, grandfather, great-to-the-many-times-grandfather. Nyssa, Talia and Damian are all that remain.”

Ra’s untwines his hands, knuckles cracking. He circles his wrists, stretches his fingers, then brings them back together. It is only a matter of time before he takes another dip in a lazarus pit, and risks his sanity for another few decades of longevity.

Ra’s meets Bruce’s gaze.

“You think I hear the ticking clock,” he says. “The passage of time weighs heavy upon me, and I wish to hasten my scheme.”

“You fear what you will do in the midst of pit madness.”

Ra’s shakes his head. “I do not need to do anything.” He sighs heavily, eyes dropping to the table in front of him. “The lives you live are enough to strike fear in any parent. Damian has died once already.”

Bruce’s jaw drops at Ra’s hypocrisy, accusations on the tip of his tongue, but Ra’s isn’t paying any attention to him. His mind is elsewhere.

“I have buried more children than you, Detective, but you only have to outlive one to know the pain of it. Immortality is not found in longevity but in legacy. Our heirs define us.

“Sora and I talked of the world we would build for our children. How we had to work for it, improve it, make it worthy of them.

“Some days I am glad she was taken from me, that she has not seen the things I have. How can this world be worthy of any child? When you hold a babe in arms and see the innocence in its sleeping face, when you look up and see the decay and corruption around you, you have to decide: do I slay the child to preserve it, or slaughter the world? We do not deserve our children, Bruce. The world does not deserve them.

“I know you understand me. As one father to another, have we not done everything in our power to make the world the best place it can be for our children? Have we not worked tirelessly towards the same goal, even when we have opposed each other? Have we not sacrificed the opportunity to be fathers to them, in the name of parental love? They misunderstand us; they think we are distant so they distance themselves, they think we take more pride in our missions than we do in their accomplishments, they think we love the fight more than fatherhood.

“I don’t know how long Damian or Timothy will walk this earth. I have no doubt I will outlive both of them. Once they are legally wed, any child they have is both of theirs in the eyes of the law. Once they have a child, they will understand what I fight for. They will come to me. They will take their places at my side, and I will keep them safe, and together we will purify the world.”

The weight of his words press Bruce into his chair.

Ra’s is right.

Not about the boys joining him, perhaps, but the rest… he is right about Bruce.

It is no wonder he feels like he has never had enough time with his children. He has never _spent_ enough time with his children.

There are many things he admires about Ra’s. He sought him out to learn his fighting skills, his martial prowess, his strategy. He would be flattered to have his intelligence compared to Ra’s, the depth or breadth of his knowledge. Even Ra’s cunning and talent for manipulation have Bruce’s respect.

Parenting is the last aspect of his life in which he wishes to mirror a man who has had multiple descendants attempt patricide.

“They won’t,” he says. “You haven’t seen them together. They understand that we are bad parents, Ra’s. They won’t repeat our mistakes.”

Ra’s eyes flash. He balls his hands into fists and slams them on the table.

“They are ungrateful! They will see. They are children now, but when they are parents they will see it my way. They will join me.”

“They are children,” Bruce says fiercely. “They should be dating, not married. Enjoying first kisses and holding hands at the movies, not consummating a forced marriage in a jail cell under your watchful eye. You’ve put them through hell to forge a tie between them that nearly destroyed both of them.”

“But it _is_ forged. Nothing will break them apart now. They are ready for the next stage.”

“Ra’s, if you push this, I will rain down hell upon you.” Bruce is on his feet, hands flat on the table. The blood pounds in his head. “My childhood was taken from me, and I will not let you do it to my children.”

Ra’s climbs to his feet at the opposite end. The banquet steams between them, forgotten.

“What will you offer me?” he asks.

And this is Ra’s endgame, as it always is. He will have Bruce, or he will have Bruce’s children, for his heirs.

“Nothing.” Bruce offers the word as though it was the whole world, bitter satisfaction lacing his generosity.

“Nothing, Detective?”

“You should be grateful I’m willing to spare you that much. You have meddled in the lives of each of my children, at one time or another. I am not your heir. They are not your heirs.” A small smile tugs at Bruce’s lips. “Be thankful I’m not threatening to tell Tim and Damian about this conversation. They have tolerated your interference so far because it suits their own ends, but if you think either of them would hesitate to bring your empire crashing down around your ears, you are blinded by your own ambition.”

“Ha. They are my heirs, Detective, and your words only confirm it. My actions suit their ends, and theirs mine. We are as one.”

Bruce reaches into his belt. He and Malik took a detour, earlier. Via Ra’s labs.

“It disturbs me,” Bruce says, “on a real, guttural, level, the lengths to which you’ll go for an heir. Arrange a marriage, demand consummation, and then collect the discarded genetic material.”

He puts a vial on the table. The fluid inside is pearlescent under the flickering lights. Condensation beads on its sides. It needs to be returned to cold storage if the genetic material is to be preserved.

“It was copious,” Ra’s says, smirking. “I could breed a dozen sons from their combined material.”

Bruce pushes away the mental images Ra’s is deliberately trying to provoke and clutches the phrase ‘genetic material’ like a mental life preserver.

“It may have been ‘copious’,” he says, swallowing down the bile produced by repeating Ra’s word, “but this is all that remains.”

“Well, I hardly supposed you had helped yourself to a sample and left the rest untouched. I can’t believe you stand there claiming the moral high ground while you hold your grandson hostage.”

Bruce’s patience runs out. “It’s a test tube of semen, Ra’s. Even the most vehement of pro-lifers would be hard pressed to call this a child.” He puts the vial back into his utility belt before it can reach room temperature, fingers slipping on the wet surface in uncharacteristic clumsiness. “I won’t allow you to menace my sons any longer. If you want a great grandchild, you will exercise patience.”

Ra’s lip curls. He opens his mouth to snarl a reply, but as his tongue touches the roof of his mouth he stops. He turns slowly, eyes falling on Malik. The sommelier backs into the shadows, bottle of tainted wine still cradled in his arms. It hadn’t taken much to coax the sociopath into boasting about the poison he’d developed that would work even on the demon’s head himself, after centuries of developing immunity.

“I have no doubt you’ll be up and about in no time,” Bruce says. “Looking younger than ever.”

“This is how you buy time,” Ra’s rasps. His throat is closing. He locks his elbows to keep himself on his feet, staring Bruce down. “No matter. You won’t leave here alive.”

Bruce shakes his head. His neck is stiffer than he expects, even after spending almost twenty hours in the suit. He’s looking forward to leaving this place. “You haven’t given the order. You always intended me to walk out of here.”

“Not... walk... Detective.” Ra’s takes a breath between each word, wet gasps that grate on Bruce’s ear. He’s knows precisely what Malik dosed his boss with, but it’s still unpleasant to observe. “You were... never... going... to walk.”

Bruce turns away from the table, but his leg is asleep and he stumbles against the chair.

No, not asleep.

“I have consumed nothing.” He tries to frown, but he can’t tell if his brow moves.

“When… they… come for… you… and see… me…” Ra’s claws at his neck. “Stale… mate… De...tec...tive.”

The heavily scented food has been covering a vapour of some kind.

“You should have stayed a waiter,” Bruce grinds out. The paralytic means he can’t glare at Malik, but it gets a wet, wheezing laugh from Ra’s that’s just audible over the growing roar in Bruce’s ears.

Stalemate, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been dithering about how many more chapters this needs, and reread the ones I had to figure out where to go next, and... you know, I think I've written it? So I'm not holding myself to finishing the epilogues before I finish posting this, because I'm in danger of turning this into a "don't post because you haven't written more" and "don't write more because you're not posting it" block. I'm not in love with the last couple of chapters, but I always knew they'd be a slog to write because I don't especially enjoy Bruce's PoV. Canon "I work alone" / "I have ten kids" Batman requires someone who's devoting a lot of mental space to deluding themself, which I enjoy in an angsty teen and have no patience with in a grown adult. You can't let your family perform all your emotional labour forever, Bruce!


	46. In which Damian returns to the beginning

Damian slips around another corner and scales the wall of the corridor. He uses the stalactites to navigate over the heads of the guards.

Last time he was here he was frantic. He’d thrown himself at dozens of guards, barely bothering to restrain himself, and it’s actually a relief to see some of the same individuals back on duty now. He’d been so consumed by his need to find Tim he’d stopped caring whether he met his father’s standards.

He paces himself today, the few guards he’s forced to confront safely incapacitated and their unconscious bodies hidden, in order to ensure his presence goes unnoticed as long as possible.

Guilt flutters in his stomach. This is his _father_ he is rescuing. Surely he should be worthy of the same desperate rush as Tim? Who was Tim to him then, anyway? Not his husband yet, not his brother any more.

But it is different, he reminds himself as he squeezes through a chimney flue. Tim had been taken, father came here on purpose. Tim had been missing for days, but Oracle alerted them to Bruce’s plan before he’d even left US airspace.

Maybe it would have made more sense to send Nightwing or Red Hood to intercept Bruce as he crossed over the East Coast, or even called Black Bat over from Asia to meet him, but Tim insisted they trust Oracle to have her reasons.

“You know the layout of the caves, I suppose,” he’d said.

“Tt. Please, she is trying to force a reconciliation.”

Tim flew the Birdjet, wearing his Red Robin costume for the first time in weeks. It was strange seeing him in it; the lines are almost too clean, and Damian refused to let him put the cowl up until they landed.

“Do you mind?”

“Under the circumstances, I can see why a lessening of tension in the family would be palatable to her.”

“Not Oracle. Bruce. Are you- are _we_ ready to see him?”

“I… am not sure. I am not ready to leave him to grandfather’s whims, though.”

“Well, no. Obviously. I mean, I don’t want him dead! But I am also not looking forward to a fourteen hour journey back with him either.”

“He has his own jet. We extract him and fly back separately.”

Damian isn’t wearing his Robin costume. It’s too eye-catching, too different to what the league members wear, so he’d grabbed a work out outfit and modified it during the flight. After almost a decade in the hard leathers, buckles and straps of the Robin uniform, it’s strange to be in soft boots, smooth leggings, and loose swathes of cloak. He’s still got his utility belt, but he’s wearing it as a bandolier to hide his tools beneath his cloak. He’s wearing body armour over his chest and back, at Tim’s insistence, but it’s the lightest and most flexible set Damian could find.

He likes it. It’s too close to his grandfather’s ninjas to make a good uniform in the streets - though being a black-clad shadow in the night has not harmed his father’s standing in Gotham’s population, it’s unlikely to reassure San Francisco’s citizens - but a little more armour, a few touches of colour, and, of course, a mask, and Damian thinks he has something that might be the foundation of a new identity.

He takes the same route through the vents he did last time, dropping into the throne room. It’s disappointingly empty, the fires banked to a soft glow, the pit covered.

The hook is still there, that Ra’s had suspended Tim from. They’d been betrothed in this room. They were _married_ in this room.

A lump forms in Damian’s throat. Of course he’d torn through his grandfather’s palace in search of Tim. He’d loved him. He hadn’t known it, hadn’t known what it was to love and how it corresponded with the turmoil that had inhabited him for months, but he had loved Tim all consumingly. The way his thoughts would turn to Tim at odd moments, finding himself drawn to hobbies and culture he knew Tim would enjoy, holding himself to the standards he thought Tim would. He was hyper aware of every time someone else mentioned Tim, never knowing if he was saying too much or not enough. The thought of Tim had filled him with nervous energy. His appetite had been poor, his sleep disturbed, his lips chafed with nervous chewing.

It wasn’t love the way he’d seen it manifested around him. They didn’t flirt on rooftops or throw themselves at each other in the heat of battle or forge a bond in isolation. The idea that the people around him might have people that did this to them still baffles him. Did Selina make father feel this way? Was he grappling across rooftops and fighting crooks channelling this happy nausea? How did Barbara ever have the mental space to be Oracle if every train of thought was being hijacked by Grayson? Why hasn’t Todd wasted away to nothing with _two_ people in his life distracting him from looking after himself?

The strangest thought of all is that Tim feels like this about him.

He’s been here too long. He has a sudden urge to revisit the oubliette, but reminiscing about losing his virginity isn’t going to put him in the ideal physical state to confront his father and grandfather.

“Habibi.”

Or his mother.

“Hong Kong didn’t keep you for long, then,” Damian says, turning.

“You look well.”

“You, also.” She does. She looks better than the last time he saw her. It’s hard to put his finger on it, but she looks more comfortable in her skin than she did at the Manor.

“Father expects me to ‘rescue’ Bruce,” Talia says. “But you are here to take the decision out of my hands.” She smiles wryly.

“You weren’t going to?”

“I hadn’t made up my mind.”

It stuns him. His mother hadn’t made up her mind. Grandfather has father, is holding him for mother to rescue, to seduce, to steal away with, and she isn’t sure if she wants to.

She has built so much of her life around Batman, and now...

“You’re not in love with him any more.”

“Oh, habibi.” Talia steps forwards and cups his face in her hands. “I love him. I’ll always love him.”

She is not losing sleep over him, Damian realises. She is not forgetting to eat. She is not _in_ love any more.

“Sometimes,” Talia says, “love is a winding path. It’s not all dramatic rescues and secret escapades. I will always love him, but in the quiet moments I do not _need_ him. The bonds become shackles. You’ll come to understand.”

She looks at him with sadness in her eyes, like she’s picturing his future with Tim. Without Tim.

“Do not fear it, habibi,” she says, stroking his cheek. “It is sad, but it happens to us all. Your first love is part of who you are, but my love _made_ you. When the time comes, know that you can come to me.”

He follows her line of thought, but it’s not the same. He is not his mother. He is not his father. He craves the quiet moments, when Tim is all his. Maybe he should be scared that it won’t last forever, but the whole idea is just inconceivable. He doesn’t love Tim like Talia loves Bruce, he loves Tim like he loves Tim. It’s incomparable.

Damian cocks his head to one side. “You look well,” he repeats. “I think letting go of something you do not need has lightened your load.”

Talia narrows her eyes.

“Is he here?”

“My husband?” Damian isn’t sure if he should tell her.

Talia’s mouth twists. “My nearly-step-father. I won’t kill him, you know.”

“You don’t like him.”

“I don’t like the thought of him hurting you.” She lowers her hand from his cheek slowly, and looks him in the eye. “The pain you were in, last time we met, wounded me, habibi. I couldn’t bear it.”

 _She_ couldn’t bear it? He’d been the one with a breaking heart.

He sees his mother rarely enough that he forgets what it is like to be subject to the world from her perspective.

He’s tired, suddenly. He just wants to find his father, return to the jet, and curl up with his husband for the fourteen hour flight. Tim has the complete Lord of the Rings extended editions loaded on the jet’s hard drive to watch together while the autopilot keeps them on course.

“We talked that out,” Damian says. “We worked on it together.”

“You worked on it? Oh, my sweet Prince. He should have grovelled. He should have begged. You have nothing to work on, my beloved, you are _perfect_. He is Not. Good. Enough. for you. And he will failed you again, and hurt you again, and… and you will come back to me then, when the novelty of _working_ on it wears off.”

Damian sighs. “I love him, mother. I’m sorry grandfather did not tell you his plans. I’m sorry you learned of it from him, and I’m sorry the first time you heard anything about it from my lips was at our lowest point. It is not how I would have wanted things, but the past is the past and we cannot change it now. We are making plans for our future, mother. If your plan for our relationship - yours and mine - is to place it on hold until I am done with Timothy, then we won’t have one. You cannot wait him out.”

“So stubborn, my prince.”

He grits his teeth. He has had enough of being treated like a child, but he has enough experience with it to know that protesting will have the opposite of the desired effect. “I want us to have a relationship, mother. If you don’t, I will accept that.”

He reaches behind him and unhooks the grapple from its place next to his spine.

“Where is father?”

“The banqueting hall.”

Talia blinks, and Damian realises there are tears in her eyes. He hesitates.

“Damian?”

“Yes, mother?”

“I want to be there. At your wedding.”

He nods, but he's unable to muster a smile. He loves his mother. She doles out her affection in crumbs, saving the cake for Bruce, and demands his whole heart in return, and for a long time Damian thought that was all he got because it was all he deserved. Now he knows better, and it's hard, looking his mother in the eye, to picture her presence at a celebration of that love.

He turns his back on her and fires the grapple.

#

Tim looks down at his gauntletted hands. It’s the first time he’d suited up in a while, and his uniform doesn’t feel quite right. He understands Damian’s increasing distaste for the Robin uniform. The time for being Red Robin - an identity built on jealousy, resentment and a desperate need to claim some rights to a legacy he thought he was losing - has passed.

Damian had looked comfortable in the ninja costume he’d thrown together. He’d looked adult.

There’s a secondhand thrill in watching Damian find himself. Finding what Tim already sees in him, showing it to the world. He’s beautiful.

They’d constructed a plan together based on the barest bones of intel on the way here. Damian would rescue Bruce and Tim would be back up. It was too dangerous to put Tim on Ra’s radar under the circumstances, but they couldn’t take the risk that Ra’s was planning to divide and conquer. Sure, Bruce came here under his own steam, but that doesn’t mean it’s not part of some larger scheme.

The Birdjet’s scanners show a population of roughly 700 assassins, give or take a Batman or so, minimal electrical activity and multiple heat sources, all of which tie with Tim’s scattered memories of the cave city. The pit gives off its own energy, which ripples and fluctuates through the other readings.

The plan was to rescue Batman and return him to the Batjet, keeping the time for heart-to-hearts to a minimum. Oracle isn’t subtle, and Tim’s sympathises, but he’s said everything he needs to to Bruce. When Bruce is ready to reply, Tim will hear him out. All this, with Ra’s? Suggests Bruce isn’t ready yet.

Only now Damian is somewhere in the bowels of the Cappadocian city and the only sign of Bruce’s Batjet is the scorch marks in the earth where it landed, a few unconscious assassins who didn’t make it past the jet’s defenses, and a single tyre that's too badly torn up to make worth scavenging.

Tim has to defend the BirdJet from similarly inclined assassins, which at least keeps his mind off what’s to come.

He’s knocked out two with Birdarangs and grapples a third over the edge of the cliff when Damian reappears with Bruce over his shoulder.

Tim already knows Damian is taller than his father, but it still feels wrong seeing him carry Bruce so easily. Bruce looks so… fragile, borne over his son’s broad shoulders.

“He’s unconscious,” Damian says. “The same sedative Ra’s gave us.”

Tim helps him load Bruce into the back of the jet. Damian’s face is shuttered, and he’s glad Bruce is out so they can talk for a bit.

“Ra’s?” Tim asks once he has them in the air.

“Unconscious as well. I think.” Damian swallows. “I did not check.”

Tim wonders what went through Damian’s mind when he saw his father and grandfather. The wrench of divided loyalties? The fear and pain of the last six months? The old urge to kill?

And then he realises, he can ask. Damian need not be a mystery to him. They are husbands.

He takes one hand from the controls, pulls his gauntlet off, and twines his fingers through Damian’s.

“We both know he’ll be back before long,” he says. “It can’t have been easy for you.”

Damian’s hand tightens spasmodically around Tim’s.

“He looked… old. Frail. I know father wouldn’t have killed him deliberately, but he has vulnerabilities father doesn’t know about. And I thought... I thought even if he is dead, permanently dead, we’re not free of him. We’ll never be free of him. It’s like it doesn’t matter if he lives or dies now, which I suppose is what he wanted.”

Damian twists Tim’s engagement ring on his hand, turning the diamonds towards his palm and running his thumb over the tiny, sharp gems.

“He will be in our heads forever. Immortal.”

“He presided over our wedding, Damian. He’s your grandfather.” Tim reaches across Damian’s lap to touch Damian’s ring. “We have to accept that he was necessary to all this. To us, as we are.”

“You think this would not have happened without him?” Damian balls his hand into a fist. Tim keeps his hand over it, resting lightly on Damian’s knuckles. “You think he primed me?” Damian asks bitterly. “Brainwashed me as a child to accept a spouse of his choosing?”

“In my darkest hours, yes, sometimes,” Tim admits. Tim squeezes Damian’s clenched fist. ”Do you think he exhausted me, until you had no choice but to take control of my life for my own good? That he browbeat me until I accepted you?”

Damian exhales in a whoosh. “In my darkest hours.”

Something comes loose in Tim’s chest. It rattles around inside him for a moment, before settling in his stomach. It’s warm and safe and it’s relief, he realises. Damian has dark hours too. Damian doubts too. They have this beautiful, passionate, magnificent thing and he’s not a bad person for lying awake some nights wondering if it’s all an illusion, if they’re just pawns, if it’s all going to be taken away from him, because Damian does too.

“I love you,” he says. “It’s terrifying how much I love you. Sometimes I think it would be easier to believe it is all just part of Ra’s scheme, because then it’s out of my control, whether this works or not.”

“You like being in control,” Damian points out.

“I do. The worst things that happen to me, though, they’re always things I can’t control. Can’t prepare for, can’t predict. The idea Ra’s might be able to is weirdly comforting.”

“He can’t, though.”

“I know.” Tim looks over at him. “We’re on our own, aren’t we?”

Damian glances at their sedated cargo. Tim twists in his seat to follow his gaze.

"Are we?" Damian asks.

"I don't know. I guess we'll find out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marie Kondo ::holding up Batman:: does this spark joy?  
> Talia: Hmmmm. No.  
> Marie Kondo: ::places Batman tenderly into the bin::


	47. In which a long overdue conversation is had

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mid conversation PoV switches in this, just to mix things up at the end (and give everyone a voice).

“Mother was there.”

“What?”

Damian swallows. “Mother was there,” he says again. “I should have said sooner.”

“Unconscious too? Do you want to go back for her?” Tim reaches for the controls.

Damian puts a hand on Tim’s wrist and shakes his head.

“He planned for her to rescue father, but she was ambivalent.”

“Really? Talia?”

“She said she has fallen out of love with father. I don’t know if that’s true, or just her way of rationalising being rejected yet again. She has built so much of her identity around him. Grandfather built her identity around him.” Damian picks at a loose thread in his cloak. “I think she’s had enough of grandfather’s scheming as well. She has been enmeshed in his plans longer than either of us.”

Tim wonders who Talia might have been without Ra’s dropping poison in her ear. She’s an incredible woman in so many ways, but she’s defined by her obsession with Bruce. Would she have been a good person, without that? A good mother? Or would that singular focus have turned to someone or something else? World domination. A supervillain to surpass her father.

“Do you think this whole thing was another attempt by Ra’s to get her and Bruce back together?” Tim asks. Make them into one big, incestuous nuclear family under grampa Ra’s wing.

“I’m sure he factored that in.”

“God, Ra’s is _exhausting_. It’s like arguing with someone who insists the lurkers support them in email, or they really do have a girlfriend in Canada, or they were just performing a social experiment.” Tim flaps at the dashboard irritably. “Everything, _everything_ , is always part of some overarching grand stratagem, even stuff that very clearly isn’t. I’m just… I’m just so over it.”

Damian snorts. “Grandfather is not some tweenager with strong opinions about The Wrath of Khan.”

“ _Wrong_ opinions, Damian. Bad, wrong, no good opinions that completely justified me hacking his phone.”

“Yes, dear.”

Tim chokes on his own laughter. He shoves Damian’s shoulder and presses his other hand to his mouth.

Damian smirks.

“Shut up. I love you,” Tim says when he can breathe again.

“I love you too. And Benedict Cumberbatch."

“You do not.”

“I could.”

“You think he looks like a horse in a human suit and his performances are one note.”

Damian leans back in his seat. He’s smiling, really smiling, for the first time since they left San Francisco. “Truce. You are, as always, ya amar, correct.”

“I vole you.”

“I vole you too.”

Tim reaches out and entwines his fingers with Damian’s. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says. “I’m so proud of you, Damian. You’ve had so many people trying to mould you, to make you into a cog in their machines. Your grandfather, your mother, even Bruce, they all made plans for you. You’re so strong, Damian. I’m in awe of you.”

Damian blushes. “You know I admire you also, ameli. Why-”

“Because dealing with your family - all your family, _our_ family - is hard work, and I think you need someone to acknowledge that out loud.”

Damian squeezes Tim’s hand. “I did. Thank you.”

#

“Do you remember,” Damian says suddenly, somewhere over the Mediterranean, “the day you came to my school? You took me to college with you. You showed me off. I found out you were gay.”

Ra’s had no hand in any of that. He couldn’t have. Damian had lost his temper and punched a boy and it was sheer chance that it was Drake who answered the school’s summons.

Drake, who wasn’t speaking to him. Drake, who would walk out of galas and meetings and restaurants if there was a chance it might be the two of them alone together, even for five minutes. Drake, who heard that stupid child and his stupid childish taunts and _understood_ why Damian had finally snapped.

He’d earned his father’s trust by following his rules. He’d earned Dick’s by needing his love. He’d earned Pennyworth’s and Todd’s and Cain’s and Brown’s and Kent’s. But Drake set a higher bar and that had rankled, because no matter what the others said about it being Drake’s fault, Damian knew he was the one failing to measure up.

Drake hadn’t trusted him, for a long time, because he _understood_ Damian.

And then he did, and finally Damian had found the courage to trust himself.

“I learned so much about myself that day. I learned I was not alone in hating school. I was not alone in preferring men. I was not alone in feeling lost in our family.”

Every breath he takes feels like the first in a long time, the tepid air of the cockpit sweet in his lungs.

“I can’t believe I have been worrying about starting college recently,” he says. “I was so desperate to join you there after one lecture.”

“You’ll enjoy it,” Tim says. “God, I loved showing you off. I was so used to you trying to compete with me, to show me up, and instead you were on _my_ side. I don’t think we’d ever done anything together like that, _learned_ something together. Take me to college with you, Damian?”

Damian chuckles. He’d like that, Tim attending lectures with him, as wide eyed as he had been. He will find a favourite cafe, a study group, a favourite tutor, and show Tim off to all of them.

“You were on my side against Hammer, and I knew, then, I wanted you on my side forever. I saw the things we could accomplish together.”

There’s a noise from behind them.

Father must have made it on purpose, Damian realises. He wonders how long he’s been awake.

He exchanges a look with Tim.

“You go,” Tim says softly. “If you need me to step in, I will.”

Damian leans over and presses a gentle kiss to Tim’s lips. Tim smiles against him.

Batman is sitting up in the back. Ra’s hit him with a much larger dose of the sedative than he’d used on either Tim or Damian. He’d wanted to make sure Bruce was unconscious when he was rescued, but hadn’t been able to predict the precise moment.

“Damian.”

“Father.”

Damian checks his father’s vitals. They’re fine. He knew they would be, but it means he doesn’t have to look his father in the eye for a few moments longer.

They haven’t been in the same space since Gotham. The last time they saw each other Damian was grounded, confined to his room like a child, and his father hadn’t even spoken to him.

That long ago - whole months ago - Damian does feel like a child to present Damian.

It’s been a very long summer.

“Why did you go to him?” Damian asks.

“He was having you watched.”

“You were watching him, watching us?”

“I am always watching over you.”

“Tt. We are not children. We do not need to be monitored.”

“I’m not-” Bruce breaks off and sighs. “I wanted to see you. I wanted to reassure myself both of you were okay.”

Damian narrows his eyes. “That’s why you went to Ra’s. To reassure yourself of his connection to us.”

“His motivations were opaque to me.”

“You understand them now?” Damian is still a little vague, and if his father knows, he’d dearly love an explanation.

“In part.” Bruce rubs his eyes, suddenly looking all of his five decades. “I understand his motivation, but not his methods, which is always the case with your grandfather. Why he can’t find a non-lethal way to clean up the earth, I don’t know. He’s smart enough.”

“He likes having the power of life and death.”

“So he makes everything he does hinge on it. Yes, you’re right, Damian.” Bruce rolls his shoulders back. “Is there any water?”

Damian hands him a bottle.

“You could have _asked_ if we were okay,” Tim calls from the front of the jet. “Just saying, Bruce.”

“There’s only room for one stalker in this family, you say?” Bruce calls back.

There’s a beat of shocked silence. Damian can see on his father’s face that he hadn’t planned to tease Tim back.

Tim laughs. “Missed you too.”

#

It can’t be that easy, can it?

He hadn’t meant to respond so quickly to Tim, but he’s still a little groggy from Ra’s sedative and hearing that tone directed at him again had been so familiar it was hard not to banter back.

He’s missed his partner.

Robin has always been Batman’s partner, but Tim was Bruce’s. Dick and Jason and Damian, they were his children, but Tim had walked into his life, told him his business, and demanded he meet Tim’s expectations. Tim was his neighbour, his co-CEO, his friend.

“I missed you,” he says.

He feels Damian’s eyes on him, watchful.

“I’ve missed both of you. I have been missing you, for some time. For all time.” He doesn’t know how to say this, but he knows it needs to be said. “I haven’t been a good father. I’ve missed a lot of important moments in your lives.”

He’s had a lot of time to think while the paralytic was wearing off.

It got harder the more children he had. The mission got harder, more complex, more time consuming. He had more soldiers to command. He’d had to prioritise. His children only got his attention when they became a bigger threat to the mission than the Arkham inmates.

He put his well behaved children on the shelf so he could manage the challenging ones. Jason over Dick. Damian over Tim. Rivalries had grown up between them. He’d seen them growing, and let his children fight it out amongst themselves while he focused on the mission, trusting them to come running when he called. Trusting them to parent themselves.

Every so often he’d realise he was overstretched and he’d push them all away. He’d try and streamline things again.

“I don’t want to miss any more,” he says, and his voice comes out choked. “My parents missed my childhood because they were dead, and I missed yours because- because they were dead. I lost sight of what was important.”

There’s a click, and Tim is sliding out of his chair.

“Timothy?” Damian starts to move towards the front of the jet.

“Autopilot,” he says, waving Damian back. “Bruce is actually apologising. I’m not missing this.”

“Timothy.” Damian’s tone is scolding now.

Bruce smiles, though his eyes are still hot and his throat his tight.

“I _am_ apologising,” he says. “And I deserve anything Tim wants to throw at me for taking so long to do it. You too. Anything you want to say to me, Damian, I’m ready to hear it.”

“I already said everything I had to on top of the GCPD headquarters,” Tim says. He folds his arms and leans against the curved wall of the jet. “It was cathartic, I’ll give you that, but I’m more interested in hearing what you have to say now.”

“I know ‘sorry’ isn’t enough.”

“The mark of a real apology is a subsequent change in the behaviours that necessitated the apology in the first place.” Damian looks from Bruce to Tim.

Bruce notes the look, and wonders what behaviours Tim has changed since their fight at Wayne Enterprises. Both of them look more at ease in their skin.

“I’m willing to be lead by you.” Bruce runs his hand through his hair. He hasn’t had time to dye it recently, and the greys are starting to take over. On the one hand, he thinks it makes him look distinguished. On the other, he’s very glad that he chose a cowl for the Batsuit - if he had Nightwing or Robin’s costume he’d need to stay on top of his personal grooming to prevent risking his secret identity.

“With all due respect, Bruce, by which I mean none at all, the idea either of us is better placed to identify good parenting than you are is ridiculous.” Tim raises an eyebrow. “Our entire family are emotionally stunted orphans. And Damian.”

“Tt.”

“You are literally the only member of this family with two living biological parents.”

“One of whom is the subject of your current rant.”

“Hey, I didn’t say you weren’t emotionally stunted. Just that you’re not an orphan.”

The bickering raises Bruce’s heart rate and he tenses, ready for hostilities to break out. Instead, Tim’s teasing earns him a smirk from Damian, which brings a flush to Tim’s cheeks, which makes Damian smile more widely, which makes Tim fidget on the spot, which makes Damian blush, which makes Tim smile, which…

“You should finish apologising,” Tim tells Bruce, but his gaze is still locked on Damian. Bruce feels like he’s intruding.

“I love both of you,” Bruce says. “I haven’t been there for you. When I found out what happened, I blamed myself. If I’d been there, if I’d been paying more attention… You’re right, I need to change.

“Damian, I’m sorry I missed your birthday. I’m sorry I put Gotham ahead of you. I’m sorry if I ever made you think I valued you more as Robin than I did as my son. You, Damian, are magnificent. I have recordings of your performances and I listen to them in the cave. I have your art framed in my office. I have never been so proud as when you told me you wanted to study pre-med. I couldn’t articulate it. I should have. I should tell you how proud I am of you every day.

“Tim, I’m sorry for your birthdays too. I’m sorry for putting the mission ahead of you. I’m sorry I ever let you think it was your job to fix me. I’m sorry I didn’t make time to fix myself. You held yourself together through hell, and I looked up to you for it, Tim. When you came to me, I didn’t take you on as Robin because I wanted you to fix me, or to replace Jason, or as a side kick. I took you on because I saw a better future with you at my side. You’re smarter than me, more adaptable, and you’re one of the most moral people I know. I admire you, Tim.

“I told myself I was trying to make the world a better place. I wanted you to live in a safer Gotham, to grow up without the cloud I had hanging over me. Instead, I drew you into the dark, and I left you there.

“When Talia came to me, with her version of events, you both have to understand how hard I found it to reconcile with what I knew of you. I realise now how much I missed, blinkered by the mission. I didn’t see what was already between you. I didn’t know how much you’d changed and grown. I could only imagine what Ra’s had done to force you together and how you’d tried to handle the emotional fallout alone. Alone together.”

“Without you,” Tim supplies quietly.

“Without any outside support.”

“It wasn’t wise of us,” says Damian. “We fell into Grandfather’s trap.”

“It’s my fault he was even able to set that trap.”

“Father…” Damian hesitates. He looks over at Tim, who frowns, apparently unsure what direction Damian is going to take. “Father, Ra’s made certain threats. Against the city. Against our family. Though we both have in mind how we’d prefer to be legally wed, neither of us want to see those threats realised.”

Understanding crosses Tim’s face. He reaches over and takes Damian’s hand in his.

“When we get back to the US,” Tim says, “we’ll marry. We’d like you to be there.”

It’s too much for Bruce to respond to. His throat closes and his breath is caught in his chest. His stomach churns with anticipation and he feels like a child again, being invited to an event with his parents. He’s being included in something special, something he has no right to expect to attend.

“You don’t have to,” he manages to force out.

“We want you there,” Damian says firmly. “We always did.”

“No, I mean-” He could do this. He let them go ahead and get married, be there with them. Be as selfish as Ra’s was. “I spoke to Ra’s. He won’t go ahead with the destruction of Gotham. You can do this in your own time. You can have the wedding you deserve.”

Tim frowns. “Are you sure?”

“I have leverage,” Bruce says. “And he thinks Malik poisoned him. He didn’t.”

“Malik?” Tim asks, at the same time Damian says, “Poison?”

“He’s the League’s Master of Poisons. He gained Ra’s ear by feeding him information about the two of you.”

“Oh god, the sommelier,” Tim says. He turns wide eyes on Damian. “I can’t believe you thought he was attractive!”

“Me? _You_ wanted to ask for his number!”

They’re still holding hands, which helps Bruce keep his anxiety under control. This isn’t the start of a fight. They’re just teasing each other.

He wonders how long it’ll take before he doesn’t tense every time they start bickering.

“He dosed Ra’s with a biological agent. Every time Ra’s takes a dip in the pit, so does the bacteria.”

“But doesn’t that risk spreading the disease? What is it?” Damian squeezes past both of them to the monitor behind Bruce. He brings up the disease vector-modelling software and starts entering data.

“It’s a genetically enhanced strain of clostridium botulinum; fast acting but only transmittable through ingestion. As long as no one eats Ra’s, it shouldn’t spread.”

“Maybe it’ll inspire him to come up with some more anti-toxins,” says Tim.

“I think you have vastly overestimated the sanitation at some of grandfather’s palaces,” Damian says. “And the perverse tenacity of his enemies.”

“I’ll monitor the situation,” Bruce promises. “You need to focus on college. You’re looking forward to it?”

“Holy subtle subject change, Batman!” Tim mutters under his breath, but when Bruce looks at him, he winks.

Damian ignores Tim. “Do you have any more information about the strain?”

Bruce puts a hand on Damian’s arm and gently tugs him away from the screen.

“Leave Ra’s to me,” he says. “Both of you have had enough of him for now. You have more important things to focus on.”

“Tt. Fraternities and underaged drinking and asinine social clubs.”

“It sounds like you’ll hardly find time to attend classes as it is,” Bruce says. He sits on the gurney and tugs Damian down next to him. “Have you visited campus yet?”

Damian throws a pleading glance at Tim.

Bruce reaches out and grabs the edge of Tim’s cape. “And you, have you finished your Arabic course? Are you on track to graduate this winter?”

“You know, I think the autopilot could do with a break. It’s been on a while. I should check it.”

Bruce rests his arm around Tim’s shoulders, letting the dead weight of it pin the smaller man in place. After a pause, Tim leans into his side. Damian settles closer as well, so he has a Robin roosting on each side of him.

Tim sighs. “Is this what it’s going to be like? The new you? So… chatty?”

“Probably not,” Bruce admits. “But I have a lot of catching up to do, and we have hours to go before we’re even over land again. You have my full attention. Indulge me. I hear you tidied up Batcave West. How are you finding it?”

“Sufficient,” Damian says. “No doubt Titus will have destroyed it in our absence. Jon said he’d drop in and walk him, but he will take his disappointment out on us somehow. He is an old dog now, and a creature of routine.”

“Damian, he’s not sleeping in our bed.”

Bruce sits between them and listens to their amicable squabble. It’s charmingly domestic and completely without heat. He’s tired and hungry and sore, and he feels every inch his age, and he’s happy in a way he doesn’t think he’s been in years. Ra’s has been neutralised for the time being. Dick is covering for him with the Justice League, the Birds are patrolling Gotham, and Jason is undercover at Arkham rooting out the last of Ra’s spies.

“So, Bruce, looking forward to being a grandpa?”

It’s okay to be happy. He’s allowed to be happy. What’s the point of fighting for so long, if not for this? He’s not Ra’s. He knows when to step back and enjoy the fruits of his labours.

“Thrilled.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it ends, not with a bang, but with an apology.
> 
> (and then with a bang in the epilogue, because I've missed writing sex scenes!)
> 
> Okay, so there's an epilogue, and a coda, and the wedding has escaped into its own fic (which was meant to be fluffy and cute and hit angsty really, incredibly quickly, but maybe that's just what weddings do). I'm having eye surgery this week, so I don't know when they'll be posted.
> 
> A couple of random requests:  
> \- if you've recced this anywhere, can you link me? I'm just really curious about the points at which people have come into this series, and the peaks in interaction.  
> \- is anyone interested in a sort of bibliography? Source links for the arabic phrases and real world research, plus basically a long "what to read next" list that's all the fics and art which inspired me. It feels kinda weird, like a false chapter luring people into thinking there's more than there is, but I don't have a tumblr to share the love on and if you've not read a lot of TimDami I kinda want to thrust stories into your face and be like "ship this!"


	48. Credits and Codas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, since I had a pile of mini-epilogues, and a bunch of links, so I'm pretending this is a Marvel movie and giving you some post credit scenes!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this sitting on AO3 for over a month, but I wanted to write a longer epilogue to go immediately before it. Apparently well-adjusted characters in a stable relationship having non-angsty sex just isn't inspiring enough, though! So I'm letting myself off that for now, and posting this long overdue ending, instead. I have a few deleted scenes and other spin-offy bits (I'm rewriting chapter seven from Damian's PoV, poor sweet virgin boy!) so if I finish the epilogue I'll probably put it in there.

Damian grips the plastic seat so hard he’s in danger of damaging it. He can see Tim at the edge of the stage, mortarboard slightly eskew, and he desperately wants to breaks ranks and run over and fix it. There is going to be so many photos of the moment Timothy receives his degree, and they will all be ruined by the hair he kept promising he would get cut and didn’t.

“Damian.” His father puts a hand on his knee. “Be calm.”

“It should be perfect,” Damian hisses. “He deserves perfection.”

“It is perfect.”

“But-”

The person in front twists in their seat and shushes them. Damian scowls. The dean is waffling on about something unimportant, and he can’t see why anyone should bother to listen to him, let alone record him.

He leans forward. “If that video camera continues to block my line of sight when my beloved takes the stage, I will destroy it.”

The stranger opens their mouth to reply, realises who they are, and spins back to face forward. The camera drops an inch and a half.

Bruce sighs, and moves his hand from Damian’s knee to his shoulders. “You’re more stressed about this than Tim is,” he says.

“He has no expectations for this day, and therefore no concerns about if they are not met.”

Tim had told him so the night before, smiling as Damian fussed with the suit he was going to wear under his graduation gown. He’d never expected to graduate, never expected if he did anyone would bother watch him, and he’d told Damian this like it was the family who were behaving strangely over the whole thing. Like their pride in him was a surprise.

Damian wants to explain this to his father, to drive home how important it is that everything be perfect, but there’s a lump in his throat he can’t swallow past.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bruce says, mouth next to Damian’s ear, “if his mortar board isn’t straight, or his hair is in his eyes, or if the camera isn’t focused. We’re here, Damian, for him. We’re proud of him. And we’re going to hammer that home until he understands he deserves it, okay?”

Damian nods. His eyes are burning, and he hates himself for losing control now. He needs to see this, to watch Tim walk, to witness him. He doesn’t want the memory blurred and wavering.

“And we’re going to do it all again for you in a few years time. I’m so proud, Damian.”

Bruce’s voice breaks, and Damian looks up, startled. There are tears gathered in the corners of his father’s eyes.

A handkerchief appears in front of Damian’s face, and he looks past his father to see Alfred, also damp-eyed, but holding it together better than either of them. Damian accepts the cotton square and dabs at his face as Alfred hands another to Bruce.

It’s just in time, as the dean wraps up and the students start walking.

Dick, sitting behind them with Jason, Steph, Cass, and a heavily pregnant Barbara, whoops as Tim steps up. Tim jumps, head whipping around, and he trips on the step, falling to his knees. The whole hall falls silent as he climbs back to his feet. Tim looks mortified, teeth gritted and face scarlet, as he accepts his degree and the camera flashes.

Bruce is right. It’s perfect.

#

**Arabic Resources**

[12 ways to express love in Arabic](https://www.arabamerica.com/12-ways-express-love-arabic)

[10 common swear words in Arabic](https://blogs.transparent.com/arabic/10-most-common-swear-words-and-expressions-in-arabic)

**Fandom research**

[DC Fandom Wiki](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Batcave_West)

[Concept Art for Tim Burton's Batman](http://filmsketchr.blogspot.com/2014/03/towering-batman-1989-gotham-city.html)

[Comic panel: Kon/Cass](http://itdans.tumblr.com/post/146704721503/she-she-got-past-my-force-field-my-impregnable)

[Comic panel: Tim's birthday](https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/2392606031982085/)

[Comic panel: Damian's birthday](https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/195062227594173290/)  
  
**Wedding outfits**

[Alexander McQueen Fall 2017 Menswear](https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2017-menswear/alexander-mcqueen#collection)

[Ahsans Groom Collections 2017](https://pkvogue.com/ahsans-menswear-groom-collection-at-pantene-bridal-couture-week-2017/groom-dresses/)

#

“It’s a boy.”

Tim blinks at the phone he doesn’t even remember answering. He’s deep under the covers, 95% asleep. The only reason it’s not 100% is because Damian has an early class so he’s already got out of bed. “Dick?”

“Yeah.” His brother’s voice is breathy and a little hesitant. “Um. Surprise! So, the baby came.”

“Holy fuck. Damian! Damian!” Tim presses the phone to his chest. The sound of running water stutters to a stop.

“Ya amar?”

“Barbara had the baby!”

There’s a bang as the shower door is thrown back and the squeak of skin on wet tile.

The bathroom door flies open and Damian crawls across the bed, stark naked and covered in soap bubbles.

“Put him on speakerphone,” Damian demands.

“Hey, little D. Uncle D.” Dick sounds exhausted, Tim realises. It must be nearly 10am over on the East Coast.

“How’s Barbara?” Tim asks.

“Good. She’s good. Sleeping. It was twenty two hours.”

“She wasn’t due for another two weeks,” Damian says.

“Yeah.” Dick yawns, jaw cracking audibly even over the phone. “Everything’s fine. Healthy baby. Healthy Babs.”

“Mary Gordon,” Damian says. “We look forward to meeting her.”

“Oh,” says Dick. “No. Not Mary. They misread the ultrasound or something. It’s a boy.”

“Well,” says Tim, “I mean, that’s really up for the kid to say, isn’t it?”

“Oh.” Dick huffs a laugh. “Yeah. Of course.” There’s a pause and Tim wonders who’s with him. Is Bruce there? Jason? Steph and Cass? James Gordon? God, why are they on the opposite side of the country? Why did they choose this? “You know,” Dick goes on, “that makes me feel better.”

“Better?”

“I just… I had it in my head I was going to have a daughter. I was… not disappointed. Of course not disappointed. I’m a dad. It’s amazing. I wasn’t disappointed.”

Tim bites his lip. Poor Dick, worrying he’d fallen at the first hurdle of parenthood because he’d been looking forward to having a daughter to dote on.

“It’s so easy to get hung up on the wrong thing. But you’re right, it’s not like we’ll know for years yet, not really.” Dick takes a deep breath. “Anyway, until the baby’s old enough to tell us, I guess we’re going to play the odds and assume he’s a boy, for bureaucratic purposes at least. So, yeah. You have a nephew.”

“Are you still using Barbara’s surname?” Damian asks. Dick and Barbara had decided that they’d give the child Dick’s surname if it was a boy, and Barbara’s if it was a girl.

“We were thinking… Well, I was thinking - Barbara isn’t really up for a lot of discussion right now - that maybe he’s Gordon Grayson?”

“Two surnames?” Tim asks, at the same time Damian says, “That’s perfect.”

“I dunno,” Dick says. “We’ll see what Barbara thinks later.”

“It sounds like you could do with some rest, too,” Tim says.

“Yeah.” Dick laughs. “There’s not going to be much of that in my future, is there? He needs feeding everything three hours.”

There’s a clatter and a thump. Both Tim and Damian tense. Dick’s voice is still audible, but distant, and there’s other muffled conversation going on around him.

“I wish we were there,” Tim says.

“Me too, ya amar.” Damian tugs him in close and presses a kiss to his temple. The sheets beneath him are soaking wet. “We should arrange a visit, coordinate with father. We do not want to overwhelm them.”

“But we want to cuddle the shit out of that baby as soon as possible?”

“Exactly.”

Jason’s voice comes on the phone. “Hey, fellow uncles.”

“Jay. Everything okay?”

“Yeah. They just brought the baby back in and Dick literally dropped everything.” Jason chuckles. “I’m gonna call him Gordo. Everyone else hates it. Or Gee-gee? What do you think?”

“I think everyone there needs some sleep,” Tim says, “and that’s me saying that.”

“You’re not wrong. I’ll send pics, ‘kay?”

“We’ll call this evening and catch up.” Tim leans into Damian, tucking his head under Damian’s chin, and revels in the heat coming off his husband.

“Give Richard and Barbara our love,” Damian says. He wraps an arm around Tim’s waist and pulls him in tight.

They say their farewells and hang up. As soon as Dick’s picture disappears from the screen there’s a notification in the group chat, and Tim swipes up to see a picture of an exhausted, ecstatic Dick clutching a bundle of hospital blankets with a tiny red hand sticking out.

Tim doesn’t realise he’s making a noise until Damian tightens his arms around him and squeezes the breath out of him. He inhales, and has to make a conscious effort not to start squeaking again.

“...is so small,” Tim breathes. He zooms in on the tiny fist. “ _So_ small, Damian!”

“So _perfect_.”

“I-” He nearly says he wants one, and that’s something they haven’t talked about before. Everything has settled down between them, and they’ve found a balance in their relationship that makes Tim feel safe and secure. He doesn’t want to rock the boat by speculating about their future, not when there’s so many other milestones ahead of them.

Damian shifts behind him.

“One day,” Damian says slowly, “after we are legally wed, do you ever picture our family with a child?”

Tim desperately doesn’t want to find himself in disagreement with Damian on this, but the conversation demands raw honesty. He hedges, answers the question Damian has asked, rather than the one they’re both thinking of.

“I haven’t pictured us after the wedding,” he says. “My imagination just about stretches that far, but then it stops. I’m scared of jinxing everything, like if I let myself want too much then the universe will know what to take away from me.”

“Habibi,” Damian sighs. “I know that feeling intimately.”

Tim’s phone lights up with another notification, and it’s a picture of a tiny, wrinkled old man face, with no eyelashes and a crust of dried milk in the corner of his mouth. Both of them ‘awww’ at it.

“But it happened for Dick and Barbara. They have a baby,” he says, staring at Gordon’s peaceful face. Tim’s heart feels like it’s five times too big for his chest, his eyes so round that his face is starting to hurt. “A baby.”

He feels rather than hears Damian swallow behind him. “One day,” he begins again, and stops himself. “Ya amar, do you want children?”

“Lots,” Tim says. “Lots of babies.”

Damian presses a kiss to the crook of his neck. “Me too.”

Tim turns in the circle of Damian’s arm, dropping his phone on the damp sheets, and kisses his husband thoroughly.

Damian misses his morning lecture.

#

**Fan Art that inspired me**

I've tried to find the original posts on tumblr so the credit is correct, but if I've mis-attributed anything please let me know!

[The moment Damian realises he genuinely respects Tim](https://pentapoda.tumblr.com/post/157359764358/grown-up-damian-in-the-moment-he-realizes-he)

[Damian can't stop drawing Tim](http://shan101pi.tumblr.com/post/143177248273/damian-just-cant-he-cant-burn-it-ahahahaha-just)

[Chalala's incredible art for Partition!](https://khachalala.tumblr.com/post/177650470912/partition-part-5-of-detente-the-series-by)

**Fanfic that inspired me**

[The Wooing of Tim Drake, Titans_R_Us](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12769899) - gifts of coffee

[To Have and To Hold, Skalidra](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6846868) \- arranged marriage

[Summer DCU Prompt fills, TimmyJayBird](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4073644) \- the arranged marriage chapters 

[Twitter Me This, CadKitten](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14112330) \- Gave me the "Damian is sexually repressed" headcanon

[PTA meeting, Rhan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/733523) \- Tim has to go to Damian’s school

[Best Big Brother, Dream_HUGE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5007544) \- Tim has to go to Damian’s school (I love that this is a massive trope for this pairing, and I could probably find a dozen more of these, but I'm pretty confident these are the two I read before I started writing this series)

**Other fanfic you should read**  


I've tried to stick to things that are finished here. If the 200k of Detente wasn't enough of a window into my psyche, I'm sure you'll notice some recurring themes in these fics!

[The Wound Begins to Bleed, audrey critter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13295661) \- this one's gen, not a ship, but it's such a lovely depiction of their improving relationship 

[We all want things, Sinspiration](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7593706) \- Ra's has his own plans for Tim, but Damian intervenes

[Your heart’s a mess, ChronicallyHaughty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13024998) \- Damian falls for Tim and has no idea how to handle it

[Show Me the Meaning (of being lonely), TimmyJayBird](https://archiveofourown.org/series/340879) \- fake relationship turns real 

[Hoodwing’d, somehowunbroken](https://archiveofourown.org/series/78721) \- another fake relationship (it's one of my all time trope catnips)

[Everything about you makes me want to scream, Skalidra](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11177346) \- Tim teaches Damian the art of sex, and they find themselves bonding despite themselves

[For a Change, MissNaya](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13047408) \- MissNaya writes the best, filthiest smut.

[Taste the green, salmon_pink](https://archiveofourown.org/works/496818) \- more batcave smut!

[ A Conflict of Interest, KaRaEa, Zillabird](https://archiveofourown.org/series/395470) \- so this one is actually multiship, and technically goes against my 'finished' rule, though the individual fics are all complete. But it's got fake relationships and bossy sex, and I am but a simple creature!

#

Batman looks down at the teenager kneeling next to the rear wheel of the Batmobile.

“Hi!”

The girl climbs to her feet. She’s wearing dark green tights, a red tunic, and a dark green cape with a hood. She’s got a slingshot stuffed into her utility belt and a tire iron in her hand.

“Hello… Robin.”

She grins. “Hi, Grampa Bats.”

Bruce tries not to flinch. He hopes no one overheard her. “Grampa” doesn’t strike fear in the hearts of criminals.

“What are you doing?”

“Auditioning,” she says. “I’m not done yet.”

“I changed the design of the wheels.” He gestures towards the tire iron. “You won’t beat his time, I’m afraid.”

Lian grins. “I’m not trying to.”

Bruce pauses. He looks at her, looks at the Batmobile. He looks back at Lian. Green Arrow’s granddaughter smiles beatifically. Arsenal’s daughter.

Jason’s daughter.

Batman finds he is very, very scared.

“What did you do?”

His granddaughter beams at him. She holds up a hand and bends her fingers one at a time in a countdown.

There’s a muffled explosion.

Bruce clenches his fist, activating the remote key. The Batmobile beeps and the door opens vertically.

A cloud of glitter rolls out of the door and across the asphalt like a sparkly fog.

Bruce frowns. “How did you-”

Lian tucks her hands behind her back and rocks back and forth on her heels.

“So,” she says. “When do I start?”


End file.
